Driving The New Zealand South Island West Coast Highway – Queenstown to Hokitika – Becoming Kiwi Day 13
Day 13 started off with us feeling much better after getting around 11 hours of sleep the previous night. It was also one of the nicest mornings to wake up to, with the sun burning through the clouds fairly early in the morning. We left the Queenstown area and began driving the New Zealand South Island West Coast Highway. Due to the massive storms earlier in the month a few of the more mountainous roads were closed so we stuck to the main highway. It was probably the nicest day in terms of weather that we had on the entire trip. We started in Queenstown and the drive to Haast was amazing. It is a fairly comparable drive to the Icefields Parkway drive in Alberta.
Picking Up A Hitchhiker
One of the highlights of the day for us was picking up our first ever hitchhiker Theo about an hour into our drive. Theo is a 22 year old from Israel who left his job as a sports journalist to take 6 months and travel. He was super friendly and it was a pleasure to share the 6 hour drive with him.
Our first good view of “real” mountains. It took 13 days, but we finally got to see them!
This was Theo, the polite 22 year old Israeli hitchhiker we picked up
We took a picture of Theo, and he took one of us, although he was a bit unsure about using our camera
The south island mountains reminded us of the Rockies in Alberta
Much like driving through the Canadian National Park system in Alberta, Driving The New Zealand South Island West Coast Highway offers many beautiful spots to stop along the way and enjoy the view
Mountains and lakes as far as you can see
After we drove through/around the mountains we ended up on the ocean side, which was a beautiful spot to stop for lunch with Travel Bella
After having mountain and lake views for the first part of the rive, we had wonderful ocean views the rest of the trip
These little trailer cafes were fairly common throughout New Zealand. This spot served ice cream as well, which was a nice treat on a warm sunny day
There were hundreds of these white rocks with peoples names and country of origin on them. It was a pretty neat spot
More beach & rocky areas
Honour system roadside honey stand! Don’t worry, we paid and waved to the camera
We dropped Theo off in Franz Joseph and got a selfie with him
We ended the day in Hokitika. This is the Hokitika suspension bridge over the Hokitikia Gorge.
The Hokitika Gorge
You can see the rest of our trip here:
