We travelled south from Nelson - the town with the jeweler who made "the ring" as in the LOTR ring - to the glaciers, passing by the rocky coastline that resembled Big Sur through Westport and Greymouth to Hokitika, where we stayed the night. Not much going on there, I have to say, except jade carving. The next major stop was Franz Josef glacier. I don't think I knew what a glacier really was, and had no idea what one would look like. We decided to forego the pricey heli-hiking options and took a five-hour jaunt up to Roberts Point, a viewing point for the Franz Josef. It was a steep, slippery, mossy climb through a rain-foresty area that looked like Yoda's planet. At the end though, there was the glacier - this massive, sort of garish river of ice tumbling off the mountain - very bizarre! We also encountered a kea up there, one of NZ's parrot-like birds, who hung around shrieking at us waiting for some food. I shouldn't mention that I slipped into a muddy puddle on the way back down and partially submerged myself, but I will. Well, it was slippery with all those mossy rocks!
We then proceeded to Fox and stayed overnight - dined in a very oddly metropolitan-style place called the Plateau, then the next day walked around Lake Matheson to view Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman, and then took a short walk to the edge of the Fox glacier - which was smaller-looking than Franz Josef, but you could really see the ice up close.
Now we are here in Queenstown after a VERY LONG drive yesterday through the Haast region. Queenstown, a resort town and jumping off point for the Southern part of the South Island, resembles Bergen (Norway) quite a bit and is a bustling place full of tourists. Dinner at the Pig and Whistle was just like being in a pub in Boston. Our rental car had some "issues" that we just got fixed so tomorrow we're off to Milford Sound.
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