On to Queenstown

Today we drove through the rain forest in rain!  Passed on seeing the penquins because of the rain.  It finally  broke up a bit as we drove into a town calleed Wanaka.  We decided to stop there and enjoy a wine tour.  It was gorgeous with the Southern Alps right in front of us.  - The drive to Queenstown is one of the best in NZ. The snow capped Southern Alps, to the flowing rivers to beautiful blue lakes, to the deep and awesome gorges, to the one lane bridges - What a drive it was. We passed a number of places where they filmed Lord of the Rings.  Now we are in Queenstown which is basically a shoppers delight and adventure paradise- bungy jumping and the like.  We decided we have attempted enough with the hike.  Here are some pictures to prove we did it.  Pictures in reverse order are: Rippon Winery in Wanaka, Wanaka Lake and Southern Alps, J&D on top of Glacier, Group heading down from the top, Blue Ice Crevices. Tomorrow we get to see sheepshearing and have a BBQ at a farm and the next day it is off to Doubtful Sound for an overnight cruise.  Everyone says it is just beautiful.

Signing off here at the Global Gossip Internet Cafe......
D&J

We did it!

Just wanted everyone to know, we succeeded in our mission to hike a glacier!  It was an awesome experience.  Arriving at the center, they fitted us with overpants, a Gortex raincoat, socks and boots.  They indicated that we did not need hats and gloves that day.  Then 52 people piled into a bus which took us about 10 minutes up the road to the entrance of where one can view the largest commercially guided glacier in the world.  We trekked through more bush (rainforest) before coming to a two mile stretch of path through rocky terrain.  That was the farthest that sightseers can go to view the glacier.  The day had turned cloudy but already we could feel mist forming and further on our way up, we did experience pesty sprinkles that was very annoying to Jan as they spotted up her glasses.  From there, the four guides divided us into groups of 13.  We ended up with Jimmy who had just finished training.  He was a charming young man who during the winter teaches ski lessons and who was working here for summer employment.  He was equipped with a ice axe as everyone who ventures out on the glacier needs to use the axe on the trail as the glacier is constantly moving and changes dramatically from day to day.  We continued on a path up the terminal face of the glacier switchbacking up a rather narrow path of a foot or so.  That seemed to take a long time but eventually we reached a point where he instructed us to put on our crampons.  Those look like old fashioned rollerskates (for those of you who are reading this and remember those!) but serve as  snow shoes would having reinforcements of prongs that gripe  the ice.  From there we started on the ice formations-up formed steps and inclines into ice that had hues of blue where the water from the glacier was melting.  We traversed through ice caverns that were not visible even a week ago. At his point, Jan's hands got cold and she wished she had some gloves.   In all, we hiked 9 kilometersand ascended to a height of 400 meters above sea level. We have some awesome pictures that you will have to wait to see as we are on this computer at the next accommodation and are not going to use up the time here to load them down. The worst part was when we reached the bottom of the glacier and had 2 miles to go to the bus.  After giving back our gear, we jumped in the car to drive down to Haast which has some of the purest beaches and rainforest in the world.  We just made it in time for dinner which turned out to be a wonderful four course meal that lasted almost two hours.  This place is situated in a very remote area and the host loves to involve the guests in many excursions.  His favorite to go see the penquins who nest on one of the beaches.  We were hoping to have enough energy to go see them before we left but are unsure even this morning, if we can muster that up.  Maybe after some breakfast. 

Glacier walk today

Hello everyone-

This afternoon we are taking a  5 hour glacier hike up the terminal face of the Franz Joesph Glacier. We are really looking forward to taking this hike. It is partly sunny compared to the rain we experienced yesterday at this time of day.  Luckily it cleared up by the time we arrived in Franz Joseph so we were able to drive over to Fox Glacier and took an hour and a half hike around Lake Mathieson (on a clear morning one can see beautiful reflections of Mount Cook there).  It was pleasant hike.  We met a couple from Germany there, who like us, were surprised by the little one sees of Christmas here.  I suspect that is probably because it lands in the middle of summer here.  We ate dinner at a little cafe where we had a great pizza with salmon, spinach, red onion, cream cheese and sun dried tomato pesto on it.  Someone questioned what type of food we are experiencing here.  Mostly similar to ours but with a lot of Indian flair.  After the glacier hike, we travel to the town of Hasst to stay the night.

Some pictures attached - river and Southern Alps, Lake Mathesion, Tasman Sea

Greymouth

Hello all-
Today we took several "bush" walking (tramps) around the area. We are in a coastal rainforest climate, so lots of very lush vegetation. The ferns and lichens are really neat to see in their native surroundings. We also visited a historic mining area and mom made it across her second suspension bridge. Dave took in a brewery tour (Monteith's), a popular NZ beer. Dave did sample a number of styles, many too his liking! Jan found a nice piece of Greenstone (Jade) that we to be able to have polished and use as a decoration at the house.

Tomorrow we are off to take a guided trek on a glacier.

That's it for now - we are off to walk the beach and to try to catch a sunset
D&J

Friday, November 12

We are sitting in a beautiful B & B on the Tasman Sea with the waves crashing as I type this.  It is overcast but not raining so we are hoping to get a walk in on the beach this evening as the tide will be out by then.  Today we headed south down the west coast of the South Island.  We had sunshine until the end (in fact, the only day we had rain was that first morning outside of Auckland-pretty good for the first 18 days of our trip, I would say!) Anyway, once again we went through mountains (amazing how many mountain ranges there are in this country!) so we had to wind around the road and take it slow.  Three times we had to pass this slowpoke because we made a stop to eat and to take a rest break. As you might guess bu now it is very difficult to pass on the curvy and narrow roads.  We stopped in Punakiki which is right on the coast.  The waves there were huge and broke against the different rock formations causing them to smoke and then spit water.  It was a sight to see!  Luckily we hit that right around high tide.  We also took a break to eat by a beautiful gorge.  Whoever said New Zealand is beautiful was certainly correct!  One glorious sight after another!

Will try to send more pics!
D&J

Pictures

Golden Bay

Hello all- It is Thursday afternoon and we are enjoying some great weather here in Nelson on the South Island. Today we took a water taxi up and around Abel Tasman national park and then did a 2 1/2 hour tramp (hike) from one bay to another through the mountains! The pathway was very narrow (at best 3 feet across) and we went up major steep paths with inclines down a long, long way.  Add on top of that, a swing bridge that we had to cross so that added to the height factor! On the way up the coast, we saw dusty dolphins at play and happened to come upon a seal who was having fresh octupus for dinner -  very fun to watch. Normally one only sees the seals warming themselves on the rocks.

Backtracking to yesterday- It was a travel day as we took the ferry across from the North Island to rhe South. The ferry is quite large, big enough to take a whole lot of semi's and railroad cars, plus all of the regular cars and camper vans. (Dave wants to now paint his engine for his train that he sets up at Christmas with "KiwiRail"-the rail car being loaded on the ferry) We enjoyed sitting in the club class section. Jan sat and talked to a fellow who was retruning from Wellington after placing his father in an assisted living center so she now knows all about how the system works here in NZ with senior problems.  Upon arriving at Picton, we picked up a red Ford Focus and made out way up to Nelson, enjoying the views along the Queen Charlotte Drive.  The only problem we ran into was finding our hotel.  Once again we had to traverse mountains to get to Nelson and the sun was setting.  Our accommodations were at the outskirts of town and we ended up to the end of the ocean point before backtracking to get to our hotel.  It certainly was not lit up like ours in the States but it turned out to be very nice.  Only problem is that we did  not grab something to eat on the ferry so the oatmeal we took along on the trip served as our dinner.  Luckily we rose early this AM to grab a decent breakie!  (A little Australian talk thrown in there for you!  We are a bit sunburned but loving the warm temperatures.  That's it for now.  Down to Greymouth tomorrow and maybe a wine tour along the way.
New Pics coming.......