Along for the ride

From Franz Josef Glacier, we continue south on NZ State Hwy 6, passing many waterways coming flowing out of the Southern Alps. Most are a light milky blue color, the telltale sign of water melting off of glaciers.

Glacier melt stream

Through a Kahikatea forest

Soon we find ourselves behind a large passenger bus emblazoned with "Topdeck - trips for18 to 30-somethings." Humm - that certainly leaves us out. From their website, it looks like this bus just left Fox Glacier on their "Pure Adrenalin" tour. As much as we'd like to pass it, we soon discover there's a perk to following a big blue bus over the one lane bridges - right of way is instantly granted.

Topdeck travel bus

Tight clearance for big blue bus

Around lunch, we stop at a parking lot along Bruce Bay. As we pull up, we see a group of young adults gathered around a pile of white rocks. One person seems to be writing on one of the rocks. Curiosity gets the better of us, so we investigate closer once the group moves on. Turns out many of the rocks have inscriptions written by travelers from all around the world.

Bruce Bay

Travelers at rock pile

Inscribed rocks

Not be be outdone, Peter searches up and down the beach for the biggest and most colorful rock he can find. Then the artist comes out in Mark as he draws images of each of us on the rock. Once the masterpiece is ready, it's placed on the very top of the pile.

Mark, the artist, hard at work

Posing with his masterpiece

The Hazard clan was here

Despite our warnings about the cold, Peter is determined to dip his feet in the Tasman Sea.

Off into the surf

Hang on to those shoes

Yup - it's cold!

The sun finally makes an appearance in the early afternoon, just as we start to turn inland.

Tasman Sea is beautiful in the sunshine

Road inland

Nice weather as we leave the coast at Haast

Into the mountains

Fantail Falls

Rock cairns by Fantail Falls

After climbing over Haast Pass, the scenery becomes more mountainous. At one point we stop on a narrow isthmus between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea to take photos and stretch our legs.

View of the Southern Alps

First glimpse of Lake Wanaka

Lake Wanaka from the isthmus

View of Lake Hawea from the isthmus

Our drive along the shores of Lake Hawea is thoroughly enjoyable on such a sunny day.

We reach the Wanaka TOP 10 Holiday Park about mid afternoon and are glad to secure two campsites next to each other as the park quickly fills after we arrive. As we are signing in at the office we pick up several brochures about Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. After looking them over, we choose to book a trip with Southern Alps Air for tomorrow afternoon as the weather is predicted to continue nice. The lady at the desk warns us, we may have to wait until the following morning as winds can be a problem taking off from the Milford Sound airport, especially in the afternoons.

That evening we meet a father and son duo traveling companions from Sweden. They have been traveling together through New Zealand for the last six months and the son another year or so before his father joined him. The son bought his travel van when he first arrived through Trade Me, the go-to website for buying and selling vehicles in New Zealand. He paid around $1500 NZ for the van and then put another $500 in to make it more reliable. Since then, his van has been trouble free and he's already sold it to another European traveler for $2500 NZ who will be arriving in about two months. Consequently, he's made a profit on the van he used for two years of New Zealand travel. We are impressed.

He does stress his timing for buying and selling was excellent. That is, he bought the van in late May (late fall for New Zealand) which is the end of the tourist season. Then he sold it online in late October (early spring) at the beginning of the tourist season. This young man will be a big success in life.

The next day dawns to a glorious day. I get up early to snap a few photos.

Idyllic vineyard by entrance of Holiday Park

On my way back to camp, I pass a dirt road off to the left side just before the entrance to the Holiday Park. There's a man in an open motorized cart coming down the road probably to pick up his newspaper laying at the base of the road. Feeling goofy, I swoop down with a flourish, picking up the newspaper and hand it to him as he arrives. Laughing he tells me that he should keep me around. Laughing back, I retort "You probably wouldn't be able to afford me." Seeing the taken back look of shock on his face, I try to smooth things over by continuing a conversation with him. Turns out he's the long term manager of a large sheep farm down the end of the dirt road and a really nice person. We wish each other well and go our separate ways as I vow to myself to better watch what pops out of my mouth.

Picnic area by Holiday Park

Dirt road leading to sheep farm

After breakfast, we check in with the office about our afternoon flight into Milford Sound. The winds have come up on the coast, so our trip has been postponed until tomorrow morning, weather permitting. We decide to take our chances and wait the extra day. We then hike the mile or two into Wanaka which is situated on the southern shore of Lake Wanaka.

Wanaka Lake

Jill and I head off shopping while the guys check out the many sports stores. I find a wonderful Merino wool/possum poncho which I love. Peter jokes I'm now well equipped to be a character in one of Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns (que in theme from "The Good, Bad and the Ugly"). We meet back up at lunch time at the Relishes Cafe, which lives up to its reputation for serving great fresh New Zealand food.

Downtown Wanaka

Modeling my new poncho

Jill enjoys the sunshine as we wait for lunch

The next morning, we discover our flight has been delayed yet another 24 hours. After debating whether we should try Doubtful Sound instead, we decide to give Milford one more try. The rest of the group opt to drive the shorter road New Zealand Hwy 89 to Queenstown. I stay in camp to catch up on business, besides I've had my fill of white knuckled NZ mountain roads and the Crown Range Road (as Hwy 89 is also known as) has the reputation of being beautiful but with many hairpin curves and can be downright dangerous. The following a photos are taken by Peter, Jill and Mark on their trip to Queenstown.

Steep road down into Queenstown

Lush green valley

Windy shores of Lake Wakatipu

Downtown Queentown

The famous Fergburger restaurant

Peter glad to be in town

As a footnote, they all agree the Crown Ridge Road is beautiful, but once was enough. So they take the longer, but easier drive back to Wanaka. Although they liked Queenstown (especially the gelato store), Wanaka is the nicer and are glad we decided to base ourselves here. Apparently Queenstown is more touristy and crowded especially with young adults who flock there for adventure.

That evening we follow-up on another recommendation by the owner of the Holiday Park and have dinner at the Spice Room. It's a little off the beaten path, but the food is again excellent. That night, we all turn in with our fingers crossed our flight tour into Milford Sound is a "go" in the morning.

We stop for the night at the Franz Josef Top 10 Holiday Park, which puts us within easy reach of the glacier for our next adventure. The person working at the front desk was from Germany and not a local Kiwi as with the other Holiday Parks we have stayed in. We asked him if was hard to find a job in New Zealand being a foreigner. He said not at all, if all you are looking for is seasonal work. Both the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers are in a sparsely populated area and the Holiday Parks are only open about half the year. Since seasonal workers do not receive New Zealand benefits, most Kiwis aren't interested in these jobs, so they are filled by foreigners.

In the morning we make the short drive to the Franz Josef Glacier. Although we arrive around 9:30am, the parking lot is already mostly full of other tourists' vans.

Short drive through forest to Franz Josef

Ah - there's the entrance

Just as we get all of our hiking gear on and are ready to go, the light rain becomes a steady downpour. We huddle under a covered shed at the trail head, crammed together from people from all over the world, all wondering in different languages wither to continue on or call it a day. Before the four of us have come to a decision, the rain lets up some, so we decide to chance the hike to the Glacier as we do have our rain gear on.

Mark ventures out into the rain

The clouds start to lift a bit over the glacier

First we hike through a thick fern forest

Soon we are passing many different waterfalls


some from amazing heights

Then we follow a rocky stream along glacier craved rock faces

and into a wide glacier valley with colorful rocks

covered in green mosses and orange lichens

The clouds still hang low over the steep tops of the mountains, creating a primeval appearance

There's a light at the end of the trail as sun breaks out over the Franz Josef Glacier

The park staff must have seen their share of visitor accidents as we pass many warning signs, especially as we near the end of the trail. As a follow-up note, danger is very real around glaciers. Just the next day, a flight-seeing helicopter got caught in dense fog and crashed on the nearby Fox Glacier killing all those on board.