One of many waterfalls.

Today we cruised the southwest coast of the South Island which is a massive national park – so big and so wild that parts of it have never been visited by humans.    We had hoped to see a lot of snowcapped mountains but most were capped by clouds.   Since it rains here for about 200 days a year and the annual rainfall is about 250 inches we were lucky to see what we did.  Still the sights were fantastic.   Mountains rising 4000 to 5000 feet straight out of the water on each of the three sounds we visited kept us straining our necks to see what was around the next bend.   And there were waterfalls everywhere.  Just unbelievable!  The pictures you see just don’t do justice to the experience.

We now say goodbye to New Zealand and in two days will be in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.    We have enjoyed our visit there with the Kiwis (both the birds and the people). I don’t think we have ever met such a happy, pleasant group of people anywhere in the world.

But we are looking forward to getting to Australia to meet our friends there, see a whole new group of strange animals, and, of course, to see the little guy who greets you each time you open this blog.

Probably won’t post a page tomorrow as we will be at sea for the whole day.