Last Post! Trans Alpine Train

Finally! I have done it!
This will be the last post in my travelogue of New Zealand. After sifting through 2000+ photos, and slowly adding to this blog, this is the end of my New Zealand trip! wooohoooo

Our last part of our journey was on the Trans-Alpine train. This train took us from the west coast town of Greymouth to our parting city of Christchurch.

After a very long trip, we were all exhausted and showing signs of it on our last day...


Happily on the train, and thankfully I was in the loner chair so noone could sit next to me, we were on our way...and surprisingly, the snorers from our Milford Sound tour were seated next to us! They ended up being quite nice (despite their snoring) and the guy was actually a famous retired news anchor from Australia. (the snorer is here in the background walking away)

This train was quite beautiful as well, as we traveled through alpine regions and onto the canterbury plains. Lots of things to see, so I was a happy girl

This is an example of one of the many bridges over braided rivers in New Zealand. As there is so much sediment which comes down from the mountains and hills, the riverbeds get clogged with this rock material, so rivers have to weave their way through. They branch off from one another and then weave back into one big river, hence the name braided rivers. They are quite unusual in other parts of the world but are all over New Zealand.

Another train at one of our stops.

And surprise surprise, it started to rain again...but thankfully cleared up a little later on.

Lots more beautiful scenery.


This was our train starting over the huge viaduct we had to cross.
And on the other side looking back
So here concludes the 2 week adventure of Alayna in New Zealand. After the train, we headed back to the Carleton Mill Lodge, where we repacked and did last minute souvenir shopping, and then headed back to the airport early the next morning, on our seperate journeys home.

Thankfully my trip home was much less eventful than coming to New Zealand, but I did make friends with an air hostess on my way home from Detroit who gave me life advice and told me to forget all my future plans and become a TV news anchor. (should have taken tips from the Australian snorer.)

Fox Glacier!

After driving much of the morning in the torrential rain, we finally made it to the city of Fox Glacier. This town is mostly a tourist town, with its main income coming from the guided glacier walks. Checked into our "luxury accommodations" and headed back to the guide hut.

We weren't sure if we were even going to be able to get to go on the walk, as there were torrential downpour and rockfall warnings in our area, with forecasts of 8 inches of rain. But regardless, the hardy New Zealanders took us out anyways.

We were all pretty tired after our physically demanding days

After being kitted out with our "rain slacks" rain jackets, gross woolen socks and pre-soaked leather boots, we got on the bus and headed towards the glacier.


Here is the terminal face of the glacier. The ends constantly break off and fall into the river of glacier water below, so you can't walk very close to it (A couple months before we had arrived, two guys did just that, and were crushed by a huge piece of the glacier which broke off)

Luckily because of the rain we had, the glacier was quite clean. Dust clings to the glacier like a magnet, making it look dirty. By the time we had reached it, it was quite clean and really blue.

Even the surroundings were fantastic.
On our way up to the glacier, we had to cross a couple streams. This one went up to our ankles and totally soaked our boots.

Take note of the size of this one...a funny thing happens when you add 8 inches of rain to a small stream....Another look at the terminal face of the glacier.

And some glacier formations as we headed up the side...note the guy being crushed by rocks in the yellow sign...
Part of our journey took us through the rainforest and up 800 STAIRS.
AHHHHHHHHH. (this was not fun)

Even halfway up though, the view was worth our now aching legs.

The glacier was fantastic. Absolutely stunning.


We were all absolutely soaked.
The ice near the bottom was amazing. Enormous ice sculptures that rose hundreds of feet in the air.
Here, we strapped on our spikes to our feet and grabbed our walking poles to climb up the glacier. As the weather, incredibly, turned even worse, the blue colour in the ice really came out. It was absolutely fantastic. (even though my makeshift camera cover-a plastic bag- wasn't cutting it anymore)

Finally, we made it to the top of the glacier, in order for some celebratory pictures to be taken.
As we made our way slowly back down to the 800 steps, I took one last parting shot of the glacier. Here you can really see the immense size of the glacier thanks to the group descending.

On our way back from the glacier...that small stream that was just up to our ankles had now turned into a raging river. The stream had quadrupled in size, and now was flowing up to our knees. We had to have the guides form a human chain so we could drag ourselves through the current to the other side. (unfortunately I was too scared/didn't want to ruin my lovely camera anymore...so I didn't take any shots of this ridiculous river...probably for the best anyways)

One of the most amazing and memorable things I will ever do in my life.

Drive to Fox Glacier

The next morning at 5 am we checked out of the Base Backpackers and headed off to Fox Glacier on the west coast of the south island.

This road was filled with insane hairpin turns with sheer cliffs on the side, which were not helped by the insane rain pounding down on us.

There were some beautiful sights along this road as well.

Even more roadside waterfalls

Much of this trip was spent hugging the coastline, which was quite beautiful, even on a rainy day.

Down at another Camera Club photo op, huge waves came crashing onto shore

Jimmy taking part in the "CC Action"

Lots of treasures to find.

The beautiful west coast of New Zealand.

Milford Sound!

The next morning, we dragged our exhausted bodies out of bed to get on our "luxury coach" to Milford Sound. Milford is just on the other side of the mountain range in Queenstown, which would be a quick drive if you consider the distance between the two places. Unfortunately, they dont have a way through the mountains (yet...) and so you have to drive around them, so the trip takes 4 hours.

Our bus was beautiful and had glass ceiling portions so you could look up into the beech rainforests that surrounded us on our way.

Unfortunately we also had a bunch of snorers on our bus (particularily sitting right in front of me) so it was a little noisy.

Along the way we stopped at a couple places.

Here is Mirror Lake. A very famous tourist spot where (when it isn't raining) looks like a sheet of glass and perfectly reflects the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, it was raining when we went so it wasn't as great as it could have been. (also note the amusing sign, which is written backwards so it reflects upright in the water)

As we had gotten so much rain, the waterfalls along the route were quite spectacular.
This was just on the side of the road.

Part of our trip was entering an unbelievably long tunnel. We had to wait for the light to let us go, so we all got off and took some pictures beside the crazy waterfalls all around.


Our second stop was at another waterfall/rainforest walk, where you could see the amazing effect of water on the scenery around us. These holes were all created by swirling whirpools over time.


More fantastic views of the surroundings from this stop as well.

After our long drive, we finally reached Milford Sound, where we set out on our 2 hour tour. (This was also our spot for the trip, right at the front of the ship, which would get much more crowded later on)

Milford was the most beautiful place. Full of waterfalls and unbelievable mountains in the fjord.

To give you a sense of scale, there are two boats in this picture. (you might have to click on the picture to open it up into another window) These were enormous.

This was called the Lion mountain (for obvious reasons)
This waterfall is three times the size of Niagara Falls. (and there is another boat underneath it to show scale)
At the beginning of our trip, it was cloudy with only some drops of rain. By the time we got out to the open ocean, it was WINDY and pouring rain. (a common theme during the trip)
We still decided to stick it out, and got some amazing shots.


As we rounded the corner, we reached the seal point, where endangered New Zealand Fur Seals commonly hang out. We were really lucky, and had a huge amount of seals there that day.
3 were "sunning" themselves on the rock.

and 20 or 30 more were swimming in the water.

Here we are coming up to the waterfall that we had seen from the other side not too long ago.
(the one that is 3x the size of Niagara Falls)

Here and Jenn and Jim getting younger by the waterfall (the Maori legend is if you stand in the spray, it will make you younger)

Here I am in the spray (although it was hard to distinguish between rain and waterfall water at this point)
Hey look! Dolphins!

cute little things. although everyone rushed outside and to the left of the boat, so it started moving that way which was a little alarming.

After our long day at Milford, we boarded the bus and headed back to Queenstown for another night of adventures at the Base Backpackers (this night was the parade of drunk people) and some excellent food at The Cow (real homemade garlic bread and gourmet pizza)