Spectacular!

That's really the only word to describe the west coast of New Zealand. We began in the north, in a forest with palm trees. Wandering south we have, variously: hiked to see seals playing on the rocks; watch western swells crash against the shore; seen a sunset; walked the beaches looking for jade; and kayaked on a sea-side lagoon in a double kayak looking for birds.

If that were all we had done that would be more than enough, but that was just yesterday. Today we took a helicopter ride up and around Mt. Cook (New Zealand's highest mountain) and landed on the Fox Glacier. We went to a salmon farm and had fresh caught salmon sashimi. We tried our hand at an amazingly hard maze. And we finished off watching the sun set again -- this time over amazing Lake Wanaka -- a 40 km long freshwater glacial lake that is absolutely stunning.

In many ways New Zealand is like the mountain West of the US -- but in most ways it is simply unique.