We drove to one site that had some camping and hiking. We were thinking of doing it tomorrow. Then we drove to this other spot. The other spot was a long, dusty, gravel, and dirt road. There were a couple of short hikes to do. We didn't feel like driving down that dirt road again so we did the short hike then. It was to give us views of the Tasman Glacier. The part we walked to was the bottom and it really is nothing much but rocks and dirt. The Tasman Lake was there and it had icebergs in it. I think because the sun was down we didn't get the same effect. The dirt and rocks are due to the melting of the glacier from the top down. The rocks and boulders slow down the melting. It we walked up further, it is said the glacier up there is about 600 meters thick. They say that the glaciers from Mt. Cook, Fox Glacier, and Franz Josef are melting very fast. I will be visiting Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier in the next few days. They are on the other side of Mt. Cook.
We got back to the park where we were tenting. We stopped to check out the facilities. They have a kitchen with stoves and refrigerators for our use. They have an eating area and a TV area. We were quite impressed. No need to spend lots of money at the Hermitage when we get everything here.
March 26, 2003
I woke up at 6:00 and looked outside my tent to see the sky getting lighter with colors of blue and pink and the moon was a little less than half full and Mt. Cook in front of me. We got on the road by 7:30 and started driving towards Wanaka. We stopped at a cute little place in Tarras. Laurie bought a beef pie. New Zealand is big on little pies that could be beef, sausage, egg, cheese. This was our breakfast stop. I just got out our cereal and had cereal and milk. We topped off our breakfast with an apple crumb cake with ice cream. Their apple crumb cake is not like what I expected, but still good.
We stopped back in Wanaka. For one thing we needed money. Just went to an ATM. They don't seem to have bank fees here. It is easy to use an ATM here, but I will be worried in other countries where I can't read the instructions.
The other thing I wanted to do was to go to a photo shop. My camera was malfunctioning. I was quite unhappy about it because I just bought it. It is not like I can return it to the store I bought it at. The photo shop told me I needed to send it back to the maker. So I had to mail it to my sister so she could take care of it. This is one thing that bothers me about traveling, that I have to depend on others to do some work because I can't do it from here. I am so use to doing things for myself. So I just want to thank my sister for handling all my stuff. (You are very welcome my little sister, who I love with all my heart)
Anyway, the camera was mailed and Laurie and I were on our way to Fox Glacier area. Laurie drove and I read. I looked up once in a while to see some beautiful sites. I especially liked the drive when the road was on the coast and we were looking out at the Tasman Sea. The sea was shimmering out to the horizon, the waves were crashing to the beach, the water was a pretty blue-green. There are so many beautiful places in this world.
We saw a lot of bikers on this drive. These aren't your day bikers, but long distance bikers. Most have panniers and some have little trailers attached. They looked quite loaded down.
One thing I have noticed on the road are the bridges. There are a lot of them and they are mostly single lane. They are marked which way has the right of way, but sometimes you can't see if there is someone at the other end waiting to get on.
We got to Fox Glacier and checked a few places out. The first place we decided to pass on. The second place looked nice. It was a hostel called, "The Ivory Tower" and we were going to get a room for the night because the weather looked threatening. The owner said that they were booked, but if the people didn't show by 5:00 we could have it. We were in luck because the people didn't show. After we settled in we walked to the grocery store. While we were in there it started raining. We certainly were happy that we had a room. It was more than the camping, but we decided we could spring for two nights.
March 27, 2003
After breakfast Laurie and I drove to Franz Josef. We stopped at the DOC and watched a 20 minute video. It had more scenery than information. We then got some information about some hikes. We decided to do the hike to Robert's Point. They always tell you how long a hike should take, but never how long it is. They said it would take about 5 hours. It was a hot day. We got to Robert's Point and there was a little spot with a picnic table. There were already a bunch of people there.
We had views of the glacier. It was OK. I still think Mt. Rainer is much more impressive. I suppose if I was on top of the glacier I would have felt different. You can take a helicopter up there and be dropped off and walk for either a half or full day. Since I had been on glaciers at Mt. Rainer I didn't think it was worth the money.
From the picnic area, with the binoculars we could see the helicopters land and let people off. There were a bunch of people up there walking around.
We got back to the car about 2:40. We were going to do another short hike around there but decided not to. We checked out the grocery store there instead. One would never think we would spend so much time in grocery stores. We wanted to check this one out because the one in Fox Glacier Village was small and didn't have much. There was a much better selection in Franz Josef. We decided to splurge and have steak, salad, and corn on the cob for dinner.
We drove back to the hostel. The road from Fox Glacier to Franz Josef was very hilly and winding. I drove at the speed that I was comfortable, but the natives were always passing me. They don't think anything of passing on a curve. The curves were especially tight when you had buses coming the opposite way. Thank heavens it was only 23 kilometers. We got to the hostel and put the groceries away and hung out our tent flys that were still soaking from yesterday morning. We then drove to Lake Matheson. There are suppose to be great views of Mt. Cook and Mt.Tasman with reflections in the lake. Unfortunately, there was a cloud right in front of the mountain and it was not moving. The reflection wasn't that great because the lake was not that calm. It was still pretty and a good walk.
