10.2.08- 10:15am Wanaka

After leaving the lake yesterday morning the two of us drove into the town outside Fox Glacier to try to find a shower. In Australia it seemed many hostels would let a person use their showers for just a few bucks, but yesterday when we stopped at a holiday park they wanted $15 per person. We left and tried a nearby hostel. The woman working there got quite uppity and said “this is a hostel, we don’t do that here”. We resorted to splashing off in the sink of a bathroom connected to an information desk.

At that point we were scuzzy and hungry (being about 2pm and not having eaten since the night before) and were getting sick of the little tourist town, yet decided to suck it up and go see Fox Glacier up close. New Zealand has dozens of glaciers, but Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph Glacier are special in that they are very low-lying, accessible, and come down into temperate rain forest. The 30min walk to the glacier, winding between sheer cliffs and cutting through what looks like jungle, once again made me feel like a large tyrannosaurus or giant ape would be around the next corner. The glacier itself was pretty impressive: stratified with the upper layers of ice sky blue, and the bottom a dirty brown. The bad part, however, was trying to ignore the dozens of helicopter tours flying overhead.

When we left Fox Glacier we pulled to the side of the road and ate our oats/cereal milk/yogurt meal while sitting on a big rock overlooking the cliffs, watching the cars and helicopters go by.
We drove down south through the forests and between the mountains (the Southern Alps), stopping at the Gates of Haast (a bridge hanging over the Haast River), Fantail Falls, and a few other points to stretch and take a few pictures. The landscape stayed hilly and mountainous the entire time, but as we headed inland the greenery slowly disappeared until we ended up in Wanaka, which is just as mountainous yet dusty and brown—Overgrazing? Drought? Or just too far inland to get as much water?

We stopped at one hostel, which was fully booked, and were directed to a very large and unpleasant holiday park, where we camped. It was probably the only place with available accommodation (the town of Wanaka seemed pretty full) and not too expensive.

We set up camp next to a fellow from Canada (B.C.), probably the only person at the holiday park not from France or Germany, then cooked dinner (we got to finally test out our ‘billy’), showered (wooo!), and went to sleep on the nice hard ground (once again, only a thin tarp separating us from dirt and rocks).

This morning I decided to let Seth’s legs do all the work and I am just bumming around and getting some writing done. I don’t know what we will get up to today, but hopefully we will have time to explore Mt. Aspiring National Park, which is right outside of Wanaka.