Blocks of Ice, Beer, Beaches, and Billions of Apples

The last two weeks have been a blur of all of the above. First we hit the west coast glaciers of the south island, moved along to tour our favorite beer factory (Monteith's), hiked along the beach heavy Able Tasman National Park Coast Track, and worked in an apple orchard to make some money to fund any further explorations. Here's the lowdown in easy to follow picture format.

Fox Glacier from further away. Ashley took a tour and got to walk/climb/explore around on top of the glacier.

















Fox Glacier again, but up close. It's absolutely huge...I am really far away.












The rain started and we continued north to Greymouth, an industrial city and second biggest city on the south island. We stayed nice and dry by touring the Monteith's Brewery, an independent NZ brewery that makes excellent beer...our favorite here so far!








Pounakaiki, or "Pancake Rocks". They haven't quite figured out exactly what caused the rocks to form in this way, but it looks like huge stacks of pancakes...really cool up close.










Caitlin, Ashley's friend and first official non ultimate billet (place to stay)! She lives in a quaint little cottage in the hills north of Motueka (Marahau), right along the coast and sandwiched by hills.









Caitlin's place was a very short walk to the beach. At low tide, you can dig around with your feet anywhere along the beach and find cockles, golf ball sized bivalvｅｓ (like clams or oysters). We collected a few and cooked them up one night to try some of the local fare.








Sunset on the beach at Marahau after collecting some cockles.

















In the interest of life experience, the steady deterioration of savings accounts, and the feelings of general uselessness and boredom that spring from not working for close to 6 months, we decided to get jobs. It's apple season in NZ and Motueka is known for their apples. If you are buying Braeburn, Gala, or Eve apples from a tray that says, Mr. Apple, there's a small but realistic chance that I or Ashley have intensely studied, quickly rotated, and gently boxed your apple or that Mike has loaded your apple onto a loading crate to be delivered to your local market. Crazy, eh?

Our pad, or bach (pronounced batch), as kiwis call it. We are living on the apple orchard while we work in the packing house. It's a pretty sweet place to live, although it constantly smells like rotting apples or cider.









Mike, being a manly man, is a "stacker" instead of a "packer" and spends all day lifting hundreds of boxes at the pack house.











Ashley and I, being non manly-men, work as "packers".

















We got the weekend (Friday and Monday!) off for Easter so decided to take advantage of it and drove north to Able Tasman National Park, right at the northern tip of the south island to hike the AT Coastal Track (the most popular tramp in the country). It was the perfect tramp: relaxing, easy, and beautiful. We saw heaps of hidden beaches and coves, seals galore (even babies!), sunsets and sunrises, etc.

Ashley and Mike on the Able Tasman NP Coastal Walk Track.












Snuggling on the trail.













Due to being a track along the coast and all, the way you hike is highly dependent on the tides. You must carefully plan exactly when you will arrive at a given tidal crossing since you only have two hours either side of low tide to cross certain sections of the trail. One morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to cross an estuary at low tide. This normally would be full of water.
Interesting fact: This part of NZ has some of the most drastic tidal changes in the world...ranging from 4 meters, up to 6 meters difference between high and low tide. That's why you can't mess around on this trail.

We got to see a wicked sunrise as a present for getting up early.












We will continue to pack and stack for the next few weeks, until Mike leaves for Australian Nationals and I join him a week later to continue our adventure in more exotic locals...we start in Bangkok, Thailand.