Greymouth to Franz Josef

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We were all up early hoping to leave the greyness and on to Franz Josef, the first of the two Galcier towns in NZ. As we drove further away from Greynouth the day seemed to get brighter, and by the time we stopped for our first tea and loo break at Hokitika the weather was lovely (but still freezing!!). Hokitika was nice there was a reaklly lovely NZ jade shop and a lovely cafe, but we were soon on the move again. After Hokitika we stopped off at a town called Ross, which seems to be one of many of New Zealands old gold mining towns, although this one is still mining gold! They had an old jail and stuff so we had a poke around, then got showed how to pan for gold before being sheparded back onto the bus. Although the bus was much nicer knowing people on it I was starting to feel like a Japanese tourist - all getting off together for a photo stop and then all piling back on before we move onto the next point of interest. I shouldn't really complain as I'm sure there were places that we stopped that I probably would've completely missed had I been driving myself!

We arrived in Franz Josef after lunch and it was stunning. The weather was lovely and it was just so picturesque. Most people were only staying the one night and we had arrived intime for them to go on a half day glacier walk on the franz josef glacier, but I was going to fox the next day to go on that glacier, as it's supposed to be quieter as it's the lesser known! As Sarah had done the fox glacier on an earlier trip and Ewa was doing the full day hike tomorrow we all had the afternoon together and decided to go for a walk. We were told about an old tunnel that had been used to channel water but was disused now and apparently full of glow worms so we decided to do that. When we got there we found that there was about 2-3 inches of water running through, and for some unknown reason we took off our shoes and paddled - not all that sensible when you consider we were in the mountains and also a stones throw from a glacier!! But we continued until we could take the pain no longer!! We had seen a few glow wroms, but not the quantity we had anticipated!! Ah well, it was good fun and certainly fit into the saying that seems to keep popping up in this trip - 'what won't kill you will only make you stronger'!! Hehehe!! 😊

We got back and had a wander round the town, which didn't take all that long, then went back to the hostel to warm back up again in the steam room and then make some dinner. As some of the other hostels had been giving out drinks vouchers for the one and only bar we went out to joined them and ended up having an awesome night!! Although probably not sensible as we all had to be up again in the morning for the bus!! Ah well!! xx

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