Our westcoast adventure starts

Stress break...high altitude & VERY skinny road.
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Thursday, January 25, 2007 (Travel day to Haast)

Brown hills to lush rainforest in under 2 hrs...

- well thought I would give it one last try with this wireless network, tried to upload pictures until 2am! (It is 7:30am, thought that might make a difference…NO SUCH LUCK!!). Wireless seems to be almost none existent most everywhere in NZ. You would think that home of the invention of the bungee & jet boat technology that someone could figure out wireless? Will keep trying, would like to get our travel blog up & running! Starting to miss the beach anyways might as well hit the road to the west coast. Figures…its now 11am & I now have a bullet fast internet connection!! Excellent, it took me another 4 hrs but the blog is now ready for the first trial run! If I would have known it would require 20+ hrs. to set up I may of volunteered Jacqueline for Blog duty!

We made it!!!
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- It is now 3pm & we are off on our new journey to see the sites of the west coast, which will include what a glacier (Franz Josef / Fox Glaciers), emerging out of a rainforest looks like? It’s 8:30pm and we have arrived! The west coast of NZ (Haast Lodge). Seems to primarily accommodate to backpackers. We are all in awe of how quickly the terrain has changed, it took us approx. 5 ½ hrs to travel only 200km (we did make a few stops along the way…30 min hike to the stunning Blue Pools & a short walk down to the "Thunder Creek" waterfall). We are now smack in the middle of a rain forest! The scenery is almost surreal; I am expecting to see a T-Rex come running down the valley at any moment! Quickly set up camp, make supper (gotta like left overs!), shower & hit the sheets while watching a DVD…another great day exploring NZ!