The journey from Te Anau took us up into the mountains where the temperature dropped to 11 degrees, thank goodness as we descended into Queenstown the temperature rose. Queenstown was like an 18 - 30's trip, very pretty but full of coach tours and about 100,000 19 year olds.
Chip repaired with some magic glue we decided to forgo Queenstown's delights and journey on to Wanaka up through the Cardrona pass, where scenes from the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed.
Wanaka was gorgeous, situated at the entrance to the Aspiring National Park, brilliant! Fab weather, we set off for a 1 hour stroll which turned into a 6 hour slog! Scenery was amazing but we were knackered! We had to stop a nice policeman and ask him where the nearest shop was so we could get a drink.
This means its pretty hot!
Up early the next day and a complete change of scenery, we found ourselves in glacier country. This is so weird - those mountains have now been joined by massive glaciers tucked into the valleys, and the ice is blue, just like on Happy Feet! Now for the geography. Apparently the ice which you can see is snow which fell 5 years ago, and the Fox glacier, which was our favourite and the one we visited first, is moving forward daily. It was gorgeous. Obviously, it took another long hike to get to it but it was well worth the effort.
You could hear the ice breaking and watch huge lumps break off.
The next day we again walked for an hour to see the Franz Josef glacier which has been moving forward one metre every day since 1985. Although not as pretty you could see the river emerge from under the ice.
An unexpected little gem emerged on our way to Hokitika, we were driving through obscure gold mining towns when we stumbled on a place called Ross. It was like being in the wild west, we saw a sign advertising coffee, etc so walked down the path it pointed to and found ourselves in an overgrown garden. A bloke in shorts, a psychedelic T- shirt, bare feet and long grey hair tied in a pony tail emerged from a little house. He was an old hippie with brilliant tales of self-sufficiency, he shared an onion with me out of a big old earthenware pot sat outside where he had been pickling the onions in vinegar for 4 weeks. Very yummy it was too!
His house was covered in cobwebs but he made divine coffee. He had loads of empty home brew beer bottles around the place and a sweet, familiar smell which I recognised from the dark distant depths of my past!
We had a good old chat, a very pleasant way to while away the hours!
Another hours walk took us up the hillside round old gold mine workings. Every walk we do seems to go uphill - steeply.
I wasn't impressed with James' next choice of accommodation!!
Hokitika is a frontier town and a bit of an artists settlement, carved greenstone (New Zealand jade), glass blowers, artists, metal work, etc have made the town home. All along the beach there are driftwood sculptures. We were going to have a romantic walk along the beach watching the sunset then admiring the glow worms in their gloomy lair but it chucked it down so .... we didn't.
We didn't get much sleep either, the motel had a tin roof (like the majority of buildings here). Jim likened it to being in a caravan in Bridlington!
We had a fabulous trip down the road which hugs the coast, there are brilliant views of wild beaches. We made a detour to see 'pancake rocks' and blow holes at Punakaiki.
Leaving the road we discovered a quirky little restaurant in an isolated spot right next to a wild bay. We had the most sublime huge green lipped mussels for lunch. Heaven.
An evening of drama followed, we were going to stay in Westport, but arriving in the town at 6ish, we discovered there was no room at the inn. Next stop Nelson 226 km away!
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Location:Rutherford St,Nelson,New Zealand
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