Glacier's, Stags and Possum Pies....Oh My!

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Greetings! Apologies for the delay in the blog entries, but New Zealand isn't nearly as uptodate with internet cafes, call centres and lady boys as Thailand! ha..

Since I last wrote, myself and Brenda managed to climb the Franz Josef Glacier located on the south island of New Zealand. Its an amazing glacier as it is one of only 3 glaciers in the world that comes down to sea level in the middle of a tropical rain forest...quite a breathtaking sight. It was quite an exhausting experience to even get to the glacier, we had to hike through all sorts of trails and interestingly enough there were signs all over the place suggested people stay off the glacier on that day...but our guide didn't seem phased in the slightest. It was pretty amazing being on the glacier, and also quite intimidating..shows the power of mother nature. With our ice picks and ice hiking shoes, woolen socks and gear in toe we worked our way up on a half day adventure. Our guide, Mike, was a real trooper given the variety of ages on our trip (one guy must have been at least 65...funny bit is that at the end of it he was the first one back to the van, he was running while we were all panting and huffing!). Early Maori called this place Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere - The Tears of the Avalanche Girl (Hinehukatere) because apparently her husband fell from the top of the mountains and she cried soo much and her tears were soo special that they froze forming the glacier (heavy stuff I know!)

The following day we sat on the bus for nearly 11 hours en route to Nelson. On the way we managed to see all sorts of critters including a stag and several other animals I have yet to identify.... I wanna call them Llamas but I am not sure. In addition we saw loads of cafes selling possum pies and every item imaginable made from possums...yummy!

After a nite in Nelson, we took the bus to Picton and then the ferry across to Wellington on the north island. After being in the middle of no where for a bit, city life was welcomed. Even the hostel was quite impressive. As per usual the first thing we did was locate and irish pub for some grub. We ate our stew in Kitty O'Sheas and then ventured to Molly Malones. After this we discovered a venue called "The Establishment" --where as luck would have it was Ladies Nite!! Bring on the $3 glasses of champagne!!!

Yesterday we yet again borded our second home (THE BUS!) heading further north to Napier--which is em...interesting. We ate in RSA (Retired Servicemens Association----i think!), ha.. we were the only people under the age of 87 with colored hair and hearing!! but we got a great feed!

Today we headed further north to Rotarua--home of the notorious gysers, zorbing balls and funky egg smells!!

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Photos

Franz Josef Glacier
Amazing...comes down to sea level amidst the trees!

RED HAIR!!
Once again $3 champagne in "The Establishment"" Bar in Wellington

Comments

[Amy]

Glaciers
That glacier looked like it would be awesome to see up close! Some of the pictures seemed surreal. I enjoyed your retelling of the Hinehukatere story. haha. Possum pies sound disgusting though!