Westcoast Weather

Last week was my second week planting little Manuka trees at a Landcorp-Farm on Cape Foulwind. That means, digging hundreds of holes with a duffer, a heavy cone on a stick that you need to repeatedly slam into the soil. Sometimes easy, when we are working on wet soil, but mostly frustrating and exhausting and after some time quite uncomfortable. If I don't get Popeye-Arms from punching this almost rock-hard dirt for hours, I will be sorely disappointed.

At least the weather was alright from monday till thursday, so we didn't get wet. We didn't get short rain days like last time either. I didn't get to bake anything! Cooking for twelve people kept me busy enough...

On Friday, it was raining and we planted seedlings again. I like that kind of soothing, easy work far better than Landcorp-work. I had to plat trees for a farm with 1800 cows, and I don't even eat dairy! Well, at least our work has made the horrific impact that dairy farms have on New Zealand a little bit smaller.

The weekend did not get any less rainy. I went to Franz Josef, a small town near the glacier that some German dude named after Austria's last Emporer. Originally, I wanted to do a helicopter tour and look at the glacier from above, but flying in rainy conditions is dangerous, so every trip for the weekend was canceled.

I walked to the closest viewing platform. It almost looked sunny for a few minutes, but once I was halfway there, it just started pouring down. I got completely drenched. The water even ran into my boots. The view wasn't great either, unfortunately.

You can catch a glimpse of the ice between the mountains.

Even though the weather was bad, there were still tons and tons of people. Tons!

At least the waterfalls looked very pretty because of all the rain.

All this moon-lanscape grey...

That's the closest you can get without a helicopter. I was at the viewpoint when the weather was just at it's worst.

I always love the little, clear creeks

This entire valley used to be covered in ice. Everything you see was glacier when it was first discovered. It melted in a few centuries. But man-made climate change is just a hoax made up by the chinese, aye

On Sunday, it rained. Surprise!! Appart from breakfast, I didn't even leave the room until two, when the rain got a bit lighter. I walked to the Tatare Tunnels and Gallery Gorge.

Kat takes pictures of cold, wet things VOL 3546

The tunnels are an old mine, and it is very wet in there. The water was over ankle deep for the most part and water was constantly dripping down. You can't even hide in a cave to get out of the freaking rain! But still, it was kind of cool and I saw a few glowworms again.

When walking to the gorge, I came by this interesting sign

I don't know why there would be explosives in the rain forest, but they were in that locker. It's also closed pretty tightly.

The gorge itself was nice, but of course not as pretty as last weekend's

A smaller river

With a bit of fantasy, this mossy tree stump looks like a sheep's head.

In the evening, I saw a little birdie treating itself to some flax nectar

I'm a bit disappointed that this weekend trip didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to be and that I really didn't get to do much, but I guess you can't be lucky every time. At least this gives me a reason to come back to New Zealand.