Glaciers, whales and thousands of dolphins

Warren joined me for a last tour of the South Island after I presented my final report in Wellington. We flew to Queenstown (site of earlier parapenting adventure), where we admired the snow-capped Remarkables and drove up the West Coast to Glacier Country. The drive was amazingly scenic, featuring a wide range of landscapes -- from Alpine vistas, to almost tropical looking podocarp forests along the Coast. And then, seemingly out of nowhere -- glaciers!

We took a helicopter ride up to the top of Fox Glacier and almost to the face of Mount Cook/Aoraki, New Zealand's highest mountain. The pilot landed us on a pristine snowfield at the top of the glacier which was perfect for making snow angels and general frolicking in the snow (thinking of all my DC friends bearing with the August heat and humidity...).

We drove further up the coast to Greymouth and took the Tranzalpine train -- another amazingly scenic ride -- across to Christchurch. From there we went up the East Coast to Kaikoura to do a whale watching trip. The Maori-owned company Whale Watch has been very successful and uses a combination of sonar, helicopters and other whale-seeking devices to track the whales. If you don't get to see one, they will give you a refund.

We were lucky enough to see five sperm whales and a pod of over a 1,000 dolphins. The dolphins stole the show with a great performance of flips, double flips, backflips, and jumps.


Whale watching in Kaikoura