Today we took the Tranz-Alpine Train from Christchurch to Greymouth. I have never been on a train before, so I was pretty excited. The ride was 4 ½ hours, and was so beautiful! The ride took us through the plains, then through the mountains via Arthur's Pass, then down to the west coast. The first part of the ride was just flat farmland, then we hit the mountains, then went through a 5 mile long tunnel, and came out the other side to lush rainforest. We got to take lots of pictures from the outside viewing deck – it was freezing and the smell of exhaust was choking, but it was so pretty out there! Then we picked up a car at the train station to start our drive to Franz Joseph. We made a stop at the Tasman Sea – really neat. Black beaches again, and very rough seas. We then had another beautiful drive through lots of mountains and rainforest – the vegetation is so neat and very thick (you would love it Kelsey!). We are now in Franz Joseph – it is super windy and supposed to rain heavily tomorrow, so we hope they don't cancel our glacier hike. They get around 21 feet of rain here a year, so they said unless it is coming down in sheets, we should be ok!
No comments:
Post a Comment