The 155-year-old hotel has just 16 rooms but it's worth a stop even if you aren't staying the night -- they have a beautiful outdoor beer garden out back with several antique cars scattered among the outbuildings. You'll want to have some refreshment before stopping off at the bra fence just a couple miles up the street. Yep, you heard that right - bra fence.
More eyesore than tourist attraction, no one in Cardrona is sure what possessed people to begin attaching brassieres to the roadside fence back in the 1990's. If unmentionables aren't your thing then you can look the other way at the Cardrona distillery next door.
We stayed the night in Wanaka, which was a wonderful small town near a freshwater lake and if we'd had more time we would have stayed a couple nights to explore the area.
Unfortunately we had to move on because we had a long mountain drive and lots to see! First stop was a short hike to the Blue Pools.
New Zealanders love their suspension bridges. They also have a pretty good sense of humor.
We slowly made our way to the west coast, stopping off at several waterfalls along the road before arriving at Ship Creek Beach park where we took a break to really stretch our legs walking along the coast of the Tasman Sea.
We also did a second walk through the nearby swamp forest to view the Kahikatea trees (New Zealand's tallest native trees at 65 meters).
By this time the clouds had started rolling in so we headed to our hotel up in the town of Franz Josef. We had hoped for some good views of the glacier, but thanks to the overcast weather we settled for some beers by a roaring fire instead.
The next morning we made our way up the coast to Hokitika, which was such an interesting little town with a lot of history. One of my favorite buildings was the Carnegie Free Library, which was completed in 1908 and is not earthquake-proof, in fact it is "earthquake prone". It is now the site of the West Coast Historical Museum and at the door there is a sign telling you to "enter at your own risk". We risked it, and saw an exhibit defining what it means to be earthquake-prone: it will exceed its capacity even in a moderate earthquake and "if it were to collapse it would do so in a way that is likely to cause injury or death to persons in or near the building". We turned around and decided to just enjoy the view of the building from across the street.
We also visited the Kiwi Centre to see the elusive nocturnal bird (they keep them in a dark room, so no photos allowed unfortunately) and to feed the eels. It sounds a bit icky but it was actually cool to feed them (you use a large forceps so they don't bite your hand) and to hear the docent talk about them so enthusiastically.
One of the landmarks in Hokitika town is the clock tower. After dinner, we saw a bunch of commotion and fire trucks arriving. Was it a conflagration? No, the fire chief was retiring so they took a group photo (he is the one behind bars).
At sunset we went to the beach for our last glimpse of the Tasman sea. Mother Nature did not disappoint.
For our last day on the South Island, we had to cut across the middle of the island, through Arthur Pass National park to catch our plane out of Christchurch. We stopped a few times on the way and encountered the famous alpine parrots known as Keas.
These birds are enormous, and aggressive, and not in any way afraid of people. They are also very sneaky and clever. At our lunch stop, I had my sandwich right in front of me and I turned to look at something and Kevin started shouting, and sure enough if a Kea didn't steal my lunch right out from under me! Kevin thought it was hilarious and could not stop laughing. I guess that's why they have these signs posted everywhere.
One of the prettiest stops on our route was at the Kura Tawhiti rock formation, also known as Castle Hill. Huge boulders dot the landscape and you could spend hours exploring among them. Too bad we had a flight to catch!
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