flight from North Island to South, NZ

I left the North Island the day after Christmas. Ben helped me set up bus tickets, so I took a bus from Thames and then a shuttle to the airport.

The flight from Auckland to Christchurch was normal... the next flight, from Christchurch to tiny Hokitika on the west coast was teeny tiny. 

Thankfully, the flight went smoothly. It was cool to see the coastline... we flew over the water to circle around and land at the Hokitika airport... (heading out towards the water...)

(Circling around back to the land...)

My brother Lenny gave me the recommendation of flying into Hokitika and I'm really glad that he did! Hokitika is a tiny town... but with a Budget rental car location at the airport, so I was able to pick up the rental car and head to Franz Josef that night... only being about 1.5 hours away. 

This was rather than flying into Christchurch or Queenstown and then attempting to drive to Franz Josef... which would have been about a 6-hour drive from either. I'm glad that everything worked well and I was able to get into Franz Josef before dark!

Although... I still laugh at myself when thinking of first getting into the rental car and driving on the lefthand side of the road for the first time... read that blog post here... on the LEFT!