After shaking the frost off of our tent early in the morning we drove through mountains and lava fields from Modrudalur to Egilsstadir and set up camp in a secluded grove of trees at the city campground. Despite holding the honor of the largest town in East Iceland the population is just over 2,000 residents, and besides being a good jumping off point for a few of the things we wanted to do in the area there's not much going on. We took a quick lap around town and then headed out to find Hengifoss, the third highest waterfall in Iceland at 128 meters tall.

​There was only one other car in the lot when we arrived, and shortly after we started the 2.5km hike we passed the owners on their way back down. We loved having the trail to ourselves after the massive crowds we encountered in Myvatn, and we stopped often to admire the view as we followed the rather steep trail next to the river. About halfway up we came to Litlanesfoss, a 30 meter high waterfall surrounded by hexagonal basalt columns. The columns are formed by lava as it cools, and always lie at right angles to the cooling surface, meaning the columns can range from completely vertical to nearly horizontal, depending on where the lava was flowing from. At Litlanesfoss the lava filled a stream bed and cooled slowly, and the tallest columns are slightly curved at the top, indicating that the lava was still slightly in motion when they began to form.

With all of our stops it took us about 40 minutes to get to Hengifoss and there was a little rainstorm along the way, but right about the time we got to the end of the trail the sun came out and lit up the top of the falls and made the red clay strata glow. The cliff face shows the cross section of all the different layers in the rock; red sandy clay, black lava layers, sandstone, grey ash and brown soil. It makes for a striking image with the bright white of the water, and gives you a glimpse into the geological history of the area. We stayed for nearly an hour just drinking in the solitude, and just as we started back down the trail another group of people arrived...perfect timing!

The next morning we woke up early to drive out to Husey farm to do some horseback riding. Neither of us are really horse people (Steve had never been on one and I'm super allergic), but horses are a big part of the culture here in Iceland so we decided it would be a good idea to give it a go. Icelandic horses are their own distinct breed, and no horses are allowed to be imported into the country in order to keep the bloodlines pure. Even horses that are exported from Iceland aren't allowed to return. They're much smaller than the horses we're used to seeing, almost pony size, but incredibly hardy with a double coat to withstand the cold and they're incredibly sure footed. Some are bred as work horses, some for riding, and quite a few farms breed them purely for their meat which is consumed in Iceland as well as elsewhere in Europe.

We arrived at the farm at 10 and met our guide at the stable. One of the perks of being completely inexperienced is that we got our own guide, and she had us comfortable in the saddle and trotting in no time. We rode out across the farm, nestled between two rivers, and down to the edge of the larger river where we could hear the ocean waves crashing in the distance. We appreciated being able to go our own way, rather than having to ride nose to butt in a line like most horseback tours in the states. We stopped on the bank of the river for a little while to give the horses a break and a bunch of curious seals swam over to check us out.

We spent about two hours out on the horses enjoying the view of snow dusted mountains and having fun bouncing up and down in the saddle before returning to the barn and treating our horses to a few slices of bread (apparently they go nuts for it). We got back on the road just after 12:30, and on our way down the road from the farm we spotted a beautiful white fox on the side of the road who kindly posed for us for several minutes before going about his own business. We drove down the East coast, intending to make our way to the South of Iceland down the most remote section of the ring road. Route 1 cuts straight south from Egilsstadir for a little while before turning to gravel and descending steep switchbacks at a 14% grade and finally veering to the East and hugging the winding coastline. The views were absolutely spectacular and we stopped at a beach covered in billions of minuscule pebbles about 30 minutes outside Hofn to watch the powerful waves battering the shoreline before heading into town to set up camp for the evening at the city campground.

This is going to be a very photo heavy post because the Myvatn region, near the town of Reykjahlid, had so much beauty packed into such a small space! After half a day in Akureyri, the largest city in the North of Iceland we headed East on the ring road towards the geothermal wonderland of Myvatn. We stopped at Godafoss waterfall on the way, and we were a bit overwhelmed by the number of people. Up until this point we have spent most of our time in Iceland off the beaten track, in less traveled areas, so seeing crowds of people was a bit of a shock for us and was the one thing about the Myvatn area that we really did not enjoy. 

Just outside of Reykjahlid we stopped to see Grjotogja, the hotspring inside a cave that they used to film Jon and Ygrittes love scene in Game of Thrones. It used to be a popular bathing spot, but volcanic activity in the 70s spiked the water temperature and although its been cooling off in recent years its still too hot to be safe. The cave isn't nearly as spacious as it looks on TV (not surprising), but we managed to get a nice vantage point for some photos at the end of the pool and then crawled through a small gap in the rock to get out on top of the cave and scramble down to our car. 

​After setting up our tent at the campground we took a trip to Myvatn Nature Baths, often referred to as the "Blue Lagoon of the North." The Blue Lagoon is a world famous man-made hot pool outside of Reykjavik, but at $85 a person and often overcrowded we decided it was a "must see" that we wouldn't mind missing. We were told that Myvatn was half the price and twice as nice, and we weren't disappointed. Several large man-made rock pools with a gravel bottom are filled with water from the National power company's bore hole in Bjarnarflag. The water contains all kinds of beneficial minerals that give it a cloudy bright blue color, and it comes out of the ground at 130 degrees celcius so it has to be cooled down a lot before its pumped into the pools. There was a nice view over the valley of the mountains in the distance, and we stayed until after dark so we could enjoy the sunset and the stars.

They weren't formed by eruptions like most craters, instead they were caused by explosions of steam from under the surface as lava flowed over the wetlands and lake. The steam vents caused rock and lava to build up around them forming small circular and semi-circular craters along the lake shore.

There were massive clouds of steam and sulfur rising from the ground and streaming out of the mountainside in the distance. The crust is very thin in spots and the soil temperatures could reach 100 degrees Celcius, so we stuck to the marked paths as we walked through the hellish landscape.

Our next stop was Viti crater, about 300 meters across, filled with deep blue water and surrounded by a geothermal area with steaming mountains in the distance. We hiked up to the rim, then all the way around the crater for views of the multi-color mountains ranging from deep black to green to tan and white. On the side of the road on the way back to the ring road was a continuously running hot shower, right out in the open. We have no idea what it was meant for, but we used it to wash the sticky mud from our shoes.

Since we didn't want to spend another night at the crowded campground in Reykjahlid we planned to drive all the way to Egilsstadir, but we took a chance on an 8k detour to Modrudalur when we saw a camping sign, and ended up finding our favorite campground in Iceland so far. We followed the signs and pulled into a field full of goats (local landscaping crew I guess...), and then down past a small turf building into a level field with campsites divided by turf walls. It was the first time on our whole trip the sky was clear enough to see the stars, and we cooked dinner in the quaint little turf house, joined by the resident cat. Modrudalur is the highest inhabited place in Iceland at 1,539 ft in elevation and it made for a cold night and a heavy layer of frost on the tent in the morning. We had planned on getting out to look for the northern lights, but neither of us could bear the thought of leaving our cozy sleeping bag in the middle of the night!

 The first characteristic that makes up an adventure is not everything goes as planned. That can certainly be said for our adventure here in Iceland so far. We are having an amazing time in the Land of Ice and Fire, but our cycle tour didn't quite go as expected. Maybe we'd better start from the beginning...

When you work seasonal jobs like we do, you are often long on time but short on money. We decided early on this summer that we would spend part of our our off-season (October/November) "honeymooning" in Iceland. Since we had lots of time on our hands, but not a long of expendable income (we are saving to buy property after all) we decided to us bicycles as our mode of transportation while we were overseas. It had worked well for us in New Zealand, and we find cycle touring to be a fantastic way to really get to know a country as you move much slower and encounter so much that you would never see zooming by in a car. We did our research, and it seemed as though we would be able to see a good deal of the country by cycling Route 1, also known as the "Ring Road" because it runs in a circle more or less around the circumference of the whole country. The internet assured us that many of Iceland's fantastic waterfalls, black sand beaches, volcanoes and glaciers were right off the ring road and with over 5 weeks to bike we should be able to cover the majority of the 900 or so miles. Further research on the weather gave us hope that although it would be a bit chilly, and a bit rainy October is by no means Iceland's wettest month, and the temperatures hovering between 40 and 55 degrees were similar to what we had experienced in Skagway for most of the summer. 

​We arrived at Keflavik International airport at 11:30pm on September 20th and spent the night at the airport before taking a bus with our bikes still in boxes to the City Campground. We assembled our bikes and paid $30 each to store our boxes at the campground for the duration of our trip, then set out to a local grocery store to load up on supplies. We were told Iceland is very expensive, but coming from Alaska we found the food prices to be very reasonable, the difference being the produce here isn't half rotten when it gets put on the shelves like it is at home. The next morning we loaded up our bikes, road to the main bus station at Mjodd, and boarded a bus to take us to Selfoss on the South coast to begin our journey.

Selfoss is the largest town in the South Iceland with almost 7,000 people. At first glance there's not much going on, but we found a nice little path to walk along the Olfusa river, which is the most volumnous river in Iceland, but only 14 miles long. The bank of the river is an old lava flow, and its pockmarked with perfectly round little holes caused by gas bubbles in the lava. Steve stood in one and it cam up to his waist, and was about the diameter of his wingspan.

The next morning we awoke to heavy rain and forecasted 20mph winds, and it turns out we had come to the South in the midst of a terrible gale that was predicted to last for days. Sections of the road further down were under a travel advisory even for cars, but the short section we planned on riding to Hella seemed in better shape so we loaded up our bikes and took our chances. It took over an hour to go just 6 miles, pedaling hard into a headwind even downhill, covering 25 miles took all day. Strong gusts would catch us by surprise, causing us to swerve towards the edge of the road. Despite the challenges we were in relatively high spirits, and our rain gear kept us reasonably dry and fairly warm. Steve got a flat halfway through the day that we aired up several times before a break in the weather gave us the opportunity to change it. Turns out the tube had torn at the base of the valve stem, but we had picked up two spare tubes in Reykjavik so we were ok. The wind really picked up for our last two miles into Hella, and it was so strong we struggled to even push our bikes over the bridge into town. 

We woke up the morning of September 24th with some big decisions to make. The forecast for the next two weeks in the South showed heavy rains, dangerous gusting winds up to 60mph and a significant chance of misery on the bikes. After fighting the headwind at the end of the day we realized we had little chance of making much progress and we wouldn't be seeing any of the sights through the rain. We debated taking a bus all the way to Hofn, on the East coast in hopes of turning the headwind into a tailwind, and riding back towards Selfoss, but realized there was no way to guarantee the wind wouldn't change direction. After checking the weather all over the country we decided to abandon the South and take a bus back through Reykjavik to Borgarnes, just North of the city, to try our luck on the North West section of the ring road.

We began the morning riding through rocky fields with big mountains in the distance, but by late morning the landscape had changed to black lava fields with bright green moss growing on the rocks. We stopped in Bifrost for provisions and went on a short hike just outside of town to the rim of an old volcanic crater where we ran into friends of Steve's on their honeymoon as well (small world!). About 20 minutes past the crater the scenery changed again and everything began to look a bit prairie-like with golden grasses and rolling hills and lots of little streams and waterfalls. The road wound next to a small river and we made camp on a plateau just off the road.

​On September 26 we had another successful day covering lots of ground. It had been incredibly windy and our campsite the night before, making us grateful for our expedition-grade tent, but it had blown itself out by morning and dried out our wet gear as well. We started the day with a short downhill followed by four big hills with short plateaus in between. The final hill was an 8% grade, but although it was difficult neither of us needed our lowest gear and we were rewarded with a nice long downhill stretch into Hunaping Vestra. After a stop at the gas station for one of the famous Icelandic hot dogs we got back on the road. There was another smaller climb out of the valley and then rolling hills along a high plateau with beautiful views of the ocean and mountains in the distance. We turned off the ring road for a 6k detour to Hvammstangi, a town of around 500 people right on the water and stayed at the local campsite with a great view of a waterfall.

The next day we managed another 50+ kilometers to the town of Blonduos. We visited the Seal museum in Hvammstangi in the morning, so we got on the road late and the 6k back to the ring road was mostly uphill and partly into the wind but by the time we got to the highway we felt pretty good. The route was mostly rolling hills through grasslands full of sheep. There were huge mountains to our right and the ocean to our left for much of the way, and it was a beautiful ride. The wind was light and behind us most of the day with light rain off and on and temperatures between 45-55 degrees. We stayed the night at the campground in Blonduos and splurged on dinner at a restaurant...significantly more expensive than cooking for ourselves.

September 28th was a really grueling and slightly dangerous day that ended up changing everything for us. We woke to a fairly steady rain, but no major wind. In fact, it was the first calm night we had experienced as the excess condensation in our tent proved. The ride started with a moderate but short climb out of town followed by some rolling hills that felt harder than than they should have because we weren't warmed up. The temperature started around 38 degrees, but combined with the rain it made it too cold to stop for more than a few seconds. It was raining where we were, but just a few hundred feet above us on the mountains it was already snowing. We felt warm enough while riding, but our hands were rarely comfortable as our "waterproof" gloves did not perform as advertised.

​About an hour into the ride we reached a long sustained climb out of the valley we were in and over a low mountain range. It took over an hour and a half of hard pedaling in our lowest gear to conquer the hill without any rest breaks, and by the time we got to the summit we were both drenched in sweat. The rain had turned to wet snow and without the exertion of pedaling uphill we both cooled off rapidly on the descent, making it miserably cold. We made a beeline for the gas station in Varmahlid to warm up and it took over an hour for us to both stop shaking. We bought two burger meals for $17 each and tried to look at things objectively.

There's a certain amount of pride and stubbornness that comes along with cycle touring, and neither of us liked the idea of giving it up, but we didn't want our pride to stand in the way of enjoying our experience. We spent several hours going over weather reports, potential routes, financial costs and emotional happiness and came to the conclusion that cycle touring was not going to be the best choice for us this time in Iceland. Despite making fairly decent progress on our bikes we were missing out on so much. Everything that was advertised as "in" a town, or "on" the Ring Road is in fact a 10-25 kilometer detour one way. In the conditions we had experienced that could easily mean spending ALL DAY to take a few pictures of one waterfall, biking over gravel roads and extreme hills to get there. We were constantly missing out on places and experiences because we needed to move on before the weather got too bad. We were also spending quite a bit of money on food at places like gas stations, not to mention bus fares to avoid busy sections of road where cycling is discouraged. Looking ahead we had a two-day minimum ride to Akureyri, and another too-dangerous-to-ride section after that. With no major attractions on our way and nothing being close enough to the ring road to get to in the foreseeable future on our route we decided to bus back to Reykjavik to rent a car.

We found out we could rent a small car for $30 a day, which would be less than what we just paid for the two hamburgers we had to eat because we were too cold and exhausted to cook. In the long run, we would be able to save money, see more and be less miserable and so we put our bikes on a bus one last time and paid $45 each to get back to Reykjavik. We arrived in Mjodd at 1130 pm and made one final bike ride back to the city campground. We were sorry to end our cycling tour earlier than expected, but after careful consideration we both decided we were making the right call. We don't know if we'll ever get back to Iceland, and we don't want to leave feeling like we missed it. In hindsight it would have been better to plan a very thorough bike trip through just a small section of the country, giving us time to make all of the detours and get to know an area really well. Who knows, maybe some day we'll come back and do just that! 

The last two months of 2015 have been full of changes, and we're just now settling down into a routine that might give us some time to update this website every now and then. We wrapped up our time in New Zealand at the end of October with one final road trip back to Christchurch and 30 hours of flights back to New Jersey. We spent a few weeks in the Garden State recuperating from all of the travel, and one long weekend bartending for the food truck festival at Laurita Winery before loading up the truck to head out to our next adventure.

On November 16th we embarked on a 6 day, 50 hour road trip 2/3 of the way across the country, passing through 7 states on our way to Telluride, Colorado. After losing all of our kitchen supplies off of the roof of the truck on our last major road trip we ordered a new rack for the roof of the cab so we could re-arrange all of our belongings. It arrived in the afternoon of the day we planned on leaving without any installation instructions, so we didn't manage to get on the road until well into the evening. We drove just a few hours to Amish Country in Pennsylvania then slept for the night in the parking lot of a hardware store.

We woke up the next morning with a horse and buggy parked next to us, and spend the morning exploring some of the little shops around town before we went for lunch at the Rumspringa Brewing Company in Intercourse (yes, that's the name of the town!). Rumspringa translates to "running around," and refers to the time that Amish youth spend exploring the outside world before they decide whether or not to commit to officially joining the Church and living the Amish lifestyle.

After lunch we left the farmland behind and stopped briefly in Hershey, Pennsylvania to check out the Hershey museum and buy some giant Reeses peanut butter cups before continuing on the road. Our late departure from New Jersey really threw off our schedule, but even though we passed through Wayne, OH at nearly midnight, we still got to stop by my Aunt Lois' bakery for a quick visit and the worlds best sugar cookies.

We drove as far as we could manage into the night, so that the next day we would have as much time as possible to spend at Starved Rock State park in Oglesby, Illinois. The area right along the Illinois river is rich with Native American history and is criss-crossed with hiking trails that lead to huge sandstone canyons. Although the fall is typically too dry for the waterfalls to run there had been a recent storm so we were treated to amazing cascades in every canyon that we visited. It felt great to get out of the truck and stretch our legs and we spent the better part of the afternoon exploring all of the trails. On the way out of town we stopped at a little bakery called Two Girls, One Cupcake that specialized in all kinds of quirky cupcakes and was guarded by an enormous pink yeti at the door. That evening we stopped at the Worlds Largest Truckstop off of I-80 in Walcott, Iowa for a traditional trucker's dinner (fast food) and a stroll around their truck-accessory store that was so big it had 3 18-wheelers parked inside as displays. The Worlds Largest Truckstop also had a chapel, a movie theater, a gift shop, full shower facilities, 2 arcades and parking for 900 trucks! Needless to say we drove on to a quieter rest-stop before calling it a night.

The next morning I woke up early to drive the rest of the way into Omaha, Nebraska where we had plans to tour the Joslyn Castle, a 4-story 35 room Scottish Baronial mansion built in 1903 by some distant relatives of Steve's on his dad's side. George and Sarah Joslyn were entrepreneurs and philanthropists who arrived in Omaha with just the clothes on their backs, and ended up becoming the richest people in the city in the early 1900s. When they died they left their estate to the City and it was used for years as the headquarters for the Omaha Public Schools before being restored by the Joslyn Castle Trust. Since Steve's relationship to the Joslyn's practically makes him the Prince of Omaha, the nice ladies in the office gave us the opportunity to join in on a private tour free of charge.

The mansion is full of such incredible details... beautifully carved exotic (and in some cases extinct) wood, intricate tile mosaics, ornate stained glass, fireplaces, chandeliers, technological advances that were cutting edge in the early 1900s, towers, greenhouses, gardens, a ball room and at one time a whole room devoted to a massive pipe organ. Restoring the wallpaper in just the entrance hall had cost well over $200,000. The whole house was an amazing work of art and engineering. After our tour of the castle we headed to the other side of the city to see the Joslyn Art museum, built by Sarah Joslyn in 1930 as a memorial after George's death. After our long day we met up for dinner and drinks with an old friend of Steve's that he hadn't seen in almost 10 years before getting back on the road.

We spent the majority of the next day just trying to make it through the rest of Nebraska. Its not as bad of a drive as Kansas, but it's a close second... just a long flat straight road. The highlight of the day was stopping at California Hill in Brule, Nebraska. It was climbed by thousands of covered wagon emigrants heading west on the Oregon trail between 1841 and 1860. Apparently the wagon ruts are still visible today, but the ground was too snowy and muddy for us to make out much. We finally crossed into Colorado and stopped in Ft. Collins to visit our friend Craig from Alaska and spend the night. The next morning we fulfilled our annual road-trip tradition by stopping at Voodoo Donut in Denver before pressing on across the state and arriving in Telluride  at 8pm.

We had a few days to settle into our (very small) room in company housing and two days to ride the mountain before we had to attend "snow college," the final stage in the interview process to become snowboard instructors. On the finally day of college we received our job offers as part-time instructors, Steve was assigned to children and I was assigned to adults. We then spent 4 days training with the two best instructors on the mountain before having almost two weeks off before we started work. Just before the busy Christmas season we were given the opportunity to shadow another instructors lesson before being thrown into the deep end at the busiest time of the year.

Since two days a week at ski school would barely even cover our groceries, both of us also spent our early days in town looking for night jobs. I got hired on as a gondola operator 3 nights as week from 4:15 until 12:45am, and Steve got a job with a local restaurant as a busser and food runner. Since we were both working double shifts on Christmas we celebrated quietly on Christmas Eve with an early dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. So far the early season snow has been amazing, and it looks like el-Nino is going to give us the best snow season either of us has ever seen!

We officially reached the west coast around 10:30 the next morning and headed North. Our first stop was at Blue Pools, a 30 minute round trip hike to a suspension bridge over a river with some beautiful deep clear blue pools. From there we stopped outside Haast at the Curly Tree Whitebait Company to try whitebait pattys. Whitebait is just the term for a baby fish, doesn't matter what species, and you eat them whole fried up with a bit of egg and served with lemon and salt. We stopped at two waterfalls between there and the town of Fox taking the drive nice and slow to save gas and not miss any of the scenery. In Fox we hiked up to the glacier, but the Department of Conservation doesn't allow visitors to get closer than 200m from the ice. From Fox we drove on to Franz Joseph and splurged on a night in a holiday park so we could take our weekly shower.

The weather was a bit dreary the next day, but cleared up just long enough for us to hike out to the glacier viewing point, past the prettiest waterfall in New Zealand. We headed back to town to hunt down our friend Wyatt from Alaska who was working as a guide on the glacier, and after a quick lunch to catch up we got back on the road. 40 minutes North of Franz Joseph is a beautiful little DOC campsite next to Lake Lanthe so we decided to set up an early camp to watch the beautiful sunset over the water.

We slept in the next morning then made our way slowly to Hokitika, a cute little town with a lot of shops and cafes. We spent some time walking around, visited the Sock Machine Museum and ate lunch at Fat Pipis Pizza. From Hokitika we headed to Greymouth, but despite it being the largest town on the West Coast we couldn't find much to do. We had expected our trip up the coast to take a bit longer than it did, so we had made an appointment at Barrytown Knifemaking for Saturday. Unfortunately we made it to Greymouth on Wednesday so we stocked up on food and headed to Nelson Creek to the free campground to hang out for a few days.

After 3 relaxing days at Nelson Creek reading and napping we headed to Barrytown to forge our own knives in a full-day class. We started at 9:30 in the morning with a raw bar of steel and ended at 5 with a shiny new knife. We had to heat the steel in the forge until it glowed orange...too long and it would burn...then hammer it out on the anvil to flatten the blade and infuse the steel with more carbon. 3 or 4 rounds of hammering and then we heated it once more and quenched it in a bucket of water to harden it. From there we marked out the length of the handle and cut off the extra steel with a hacksaw. Then we took the steel to the belt sander to remove the black and polish the middle of the blade before we started on the handle. 

After we finished up with the knives we still had enough daylight left to explore Pancake Rocks, thin sheets of limestone with thinner layers of mudstone in between that make them look just like big stacks of flapjacks. Scientists aren't exactly sure what caused them to form that way, but they do know that they formed on the sea-bed and were later lifted up and eroded away to form the large towers and cliffs. We ended our day at a holiday park in Charleston and enjoyed another good shower to wash off all the ash from the forge.

The next morning we drove through Westport headed for the end of the West Coast road. We stopped in Seddonville to explore the Chasm Creek Walkway, a short bushwalk that went through an old railway tunnel and over several bridges. After our little hike we drove through Karamea to Oparara to see the limestone arches and caves. All the trails were at the end of a 14k dirt road and it was in pretty rough shape so it took quite a while to get out there. We hiked out to the Oparara Arch on a trail that ran parallel to a beautiful stream. The arch was massive...several hundred feet high and wide...but the best part of the hike was the friendly little bird we met on the way back. He followed us for several feet, flying past our heads and jumping from branch to branch next to us, and when we stopped and put out our hands he had no qualms about jumping into our palms and trying to divest us of our rings. By the time we finished the hike we were both pretty hungry, so we decided to cook dinner and save the cave hikes for the next morning.

We woke up to a bit of a drizzle, but considering we planned on spending the morning underground it didn't bother us too much. We made the short hike out to Crazy Paving Cave where the floor was covered in "bricks" of fine sediment that dried slowly and cracked to give it a cobblestone look. The walkway was wired off to protect the fragile formations and it only took a few minutes to see the whole cave. Box Canyon Cave, right next door, didn't have any of the natural "paving stones" and so we were free to explore every nook and cranny of the enormous cave. Steve quickly found the narrowest passage possible and we began worming our way into the depths of the cave. 

Our side-stepping and shoulder scraping paid off in the form of a small chamber full of massive hand-sized spiders. These cave spiders are apparently direct descendants of the earliest known true spiders and the sign at the entrance warned us to "look but do not touch," a sentiment entirely unnecessary in my opinion as I can't even imagine wanting to touch them with a 10 foot pole. It did make me slightly less inclined to want to go squeezing into any more small spaces, but when we made our way to the back of the cave I couldn't resist climbing up a large pile of sedimental clay deposited by who know what source of water. From the top of my 30ft mountain and I had a clear view of the massive cave around me, and I discovered another small passageway that led to the rear of the cave where we found a little colony of glow worms. We turned off our headlamps and enjoyed the artificial starlight for a few minutes before heading back above ground.

By the time we emerged into the daylight the rain had all but ended and our drive back to the main road was bumpy, but uneventful. We headed back south to Westport and took the road for Nelson, planning to slowly make our way from there to Christchurch and then back to the Queenstown Lakes area to start looking for jobs.

To see more of the West Coast's beauty go to the photo post here.