Friday, July 8: From the Canterbury Plains to the Alpine Forest to the West Coast Rainforest all in ONE Day

We changed around our course schedule in order to take advantage of sunny skies on the West Coast for our big 5-day trip and overnight hike.  Getting to the West Coast from the Canterbury Plains involves going across one of two passes - we traveled across Arthur's Pass here and will return through Lewis Pass later in the week.  When we left, it was cold and raining, but that did not stop our enjoyment of all of the fun and interesting points of interest along the way...

Giant doughnut art in Springfield -Doh!

Castle Hill - these wind and water worn limestone rocks are beautiful to explore (even in the sleet?).

-6 C/21.2F at Arthur's Pass National Park, but the weather is starting to clear as we head west and we are enjoying seeing the terrain turn to Alpine Forest.

Still very cold, but a Kea (large alpine parrot) still came out to greet us!

Weather continues to improve at Arthur's Pass and we got warmed up hiking up to Devil's Punchbowl Falls.

We made it to Greymouth on the West Coast in time to watch a beautiful sunset over the Tasman Sea.  It was so clear we could even see Mt Cook south down the coastline!

After dinner, we got all of our supplies together and packs ready for the Croesus Track hike up to Cess Clark Hut in the morning.  As hoped, it should perfect weather the next few days for our West Coast adventures in the rainforest. m : )