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Glaciers
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Still buzzing from the bungy, we continued north from Queenstown towards Arrowtown, a small village who's charm comes from it's village centre being lined with traditional old wooden buildings, in a spaghetti western stylee - the only problem being that all these buildings now housed shops geared up for tourists. However as we had come to expect in New Zealand, where there were tourist shops, there were always chocolate shops, so after buying some "patagonian chocolate" (well it would be rude not to) we headed back to the van and on towards Wanaka. The drive again took us through some wonderful scenary climbing up to 1800 meters into the area where the main Queenstown snow fields lay in the winter time, flanked on the east side by the Remarkables mountain range, and it's name is no joke. The road then winds slowly down and through a number of valleys passing the "Bra Fence" a world renound fence which was popped up over night some years ago, and as word of it spread, so did the number of bra along it. People came from far and wide to pin up their bra's, some for fun, others in rememberence of someone who had died, or who was struggling with breast cancer, whatever the reason thousands upon thousands of people had added to the fence. Over the past couple of years however the local council had begun proceedings to get the fence removed, even though the public out cry was huge, even the farmer who's land the fence was on did not want the fence taken down. However upon arrival we could not see the fence - the council had won - gutted, Rach was so annoyed at not being able to get rid of one of her pink bra's she even thought about starting a new one of her own!.
Wanaka sits on the edge of Lake Wanaka, which is surround by the Mount Aspiring National Park, and of course has some breathe taking scenary to boot. After having lunch by the lake looking at the range ahead of us we headed into town to find "Puzzle World" which we had read about. He we found the most amazing array of puzzles and mind blowing stuff including the Amazing Maze and waterfall that ran up hill. It was brilliant, rooms full of holograms, where the eyes followed you around, a room where the perception was altered when looking at it through a video camera so it looked like you had shrunk or grown.. Hours of fun when you have time to kill. Back on the road we continued east, it was getting late and after finding a carpark over looking the sea we were just about to set up camp when 3 vans, all with sports this and alloy that , music blarring out polled up. It just wasn't really what we were looking for that night, so without making a sound we got back in the van and continued to drive. We finally found a doc site at lake Paringa, in the depths of the forest, by this time it was 8pmish and the sun was begining to set. Kev began cooking immediately and Rach decided to go for a little wander. 20 Minutes later she had not returned, until all of sudden Kev could hear the her distinctive laugher and looking around found her chatting up some old man ! Keith was his name. A retired 70 year old from the UK, he had decided at the last minute to go on a trip and so came to NZ for 6 weeks on his own. It was only his second day in the van and he was having a few problems including no gas and no milk!. So he couldn't cook or keep himself warm. Rachel of course did the humanly thing and invited Kieth over for some wine and a chat - 2 bottles of wine later and 200 dead mosquitos it was time for bed. The following morning we woke Keith up with a Cup of Tea and some hot buttered toast, to keep him going until he could find some gas later that day - We bid him fairwell and then moved on north. We had again planned to travel some miles today, but also wanted to stop at both the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Both glaciers have been heavily retreating over the past few decades and although still impressive are small in comparression to the mighty destroyers they once were. Having climbed the glaciers in South America we decided to just walk up to these 2, and on reflection we are glad to have saved our money. The glaciers were different to those in South America in that they melted vertically rather than horizontally (eg they still had some length but not a huge amount of girth !!). With this also came the mud and grit from the bottom of the glacier which made them look dirty, not the sparkling, dazzling blue of other glaciers. However glaciers wherever you see them in the world are still amazing, and with them all on the retreat in some way or another, we were glad to have made the effort to see them. The rest of the day we spent once again the van, heading up towards Greymouth which was to be our camp for the night. We had picked a campsite to stay at which looked central. Upon arriving we found it was a carpark, in the middle of a car lot, behind a petrol station. Mmmmm Nice ! Litterally we were parked next to cars which were up for sale. Whether it was fear of being sold over night or being towed we dicided to keep trying and finally found a Top 10 site just round the corner, at the end of the Airport, right next to the sea. That night just as we were settling down we looked out the window and thought we could see 2 eyes staring back at us - We could! It looked to be a Kiwi !
The following day, we thought, would just be a leisurely day - we needed to get our windscreen fixed or replaced due to a large crack caused by a stone the previous week, but we didn't plan on driving too far... More thumbnails ...
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