Ice tunnels and Mirror lakes
We spent only a day and a half in Queenstown as we're a bit too broken to do any of the cool extreme sports on offer... we'll save those for our next trip! We headed up around Lake Wanaka where we did a walk around the lake and then drove on up along the Haast Pass stopping off at waterfalls and scenic points. We found a cheap Department of Conservation campsite and parked up there for the night - it was freeeeezing! We got moving pretty early and continuned the journey across to the coast and up to Fox Glacier. We had a look at the glacier and went for a walk around the beautiful Lake Matheson which is nicknamed the Mirror Lake as it has brilliant views of Mt Cook with perfect reflections in the water. It was a glorious blue skied day and so the reflections were just like in the postcards! We then went along to the Fraz Josef glacier and booked ourselves on for a full day guided tour on the glacier starting at 8am the next day :oS
The glacier tour was interesting... I did feel like one of those victorians you see in old pictures... blatently a tourist going for a pleasant stroll on the glacier while a poor sod walks ahead cutting out steps for us with his mighty axe! It did get a little more interesting as we got up higher and we crawled through ice tunnels and squeezed through long narrow gullies deep in the ice. All pretty cool and we got nice and wet. The Franz Josef Glacier is pretty cool as it is actually advancing rather than receeding at the moment since 2004... the front grows about 20cm a day whilst the back moves up to 5m a day! This means the face of the glacier is very steep and huge chuncks actually fell off as we were walking up. It is also one of only 3 glaciers that actually goes below the tree line into the rainforest (the others being Fox Glacier and one in S. America). Theres so trivia for you!
When we finished our fun day out we jumped straight in the car and and headed up north... we free camped somewhere before Greymouth (not sure where!) and are currently in Greymouth... again! Our little campervan needed a new battery so we've had him fixed up and are about to go for another one of those lamb sandwiches... yummy!
Next stop... the Abel Tasman Park on the north coast of the South Island before floating across to the North Island.