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Published: March 31st 2006
The Night Before
Bedroom window view #8 - will Thames St ever look the same?Well by now we were all prepared to be writing in the style of Big Brother ... "Dey nine in the Big Bovver Campervan and the vanmates are getting ratty...", but am relieved to report that no one's been nominated or evicted.
Infact vanmate numbers have doubled with the addition of Someone and Somebody (ie, Someone forgot to lock the door and Somebody didn't empty the kettle...). Fortunately, it's very hard to do anything but smile here as everything is as good as we'd imagined it to be.
Worked through the lingering pains of DS and headed for Lake Wanaka on Thursday. A cool, relaxing place to break up the journey to the glaciers and rest overnight. The town had lots of good cafes and bars but lost points because we couldn't find a pavlova
anywhere. Twelve days we've been here and not a single pavlova has passed our lips. Can you
believe it?
Maybe NZ isn't as perfect as we thought ... Have been compensated admirably with some gorgeous breads and cakes, our favourite being the banana bread. Anyone with a good recipe please forward to the usual email address (thanks Gaynor xx)
So here we
Smooth Landing
Beats three point turns in the van ... are at Franz Josef, a tiny town in the middle of the rain forest on the west coast. The place really only exists because of its massive glacier. We bit the bullet (and the credit card) and booked ourselves on a heli-hike this morning. Yet again - an astounding experience. Our group of ten were taken up to the middle and deepest part of the glacier, where our chopper landed on the smallest iciest 'helipad' you ever did see.
Once kitted out with ice talonz on our boots, we set off to explore some of the crevasses, caves and moulins (vertical shafts). Our guide, Dayle gave us the full rundown on the glacier's history and movement - it is currently advancing at 4 metres a day, although has receded some 2km in the past few years. Caves we were taken to today were not there a week ago and could be gone by tomorrow. Infact, while we were in one cave posing for a photo as only we can, the ice cracked, emitting a 'boom' like sound. A quick nod from Dayle and we hotfooted it out ...
Pleased to report no accidents, no falling down crevasses (Kate
The Road Ahead
... and not a cafe in sight ... is sat here too I promise) and we are now enjoying being back on solid ground in the warm sunshine.
But enough about us, you must be suffering from blog overload! And since some have cast aspersions on our travel writing (is it any wonder?) we shall leave this one photo-heavy - think they say it all.
Off whale hunting, I mean whale watching on Monday - so long as we and the campervan get back safely to Christchurch. Check in with you all again soooon.
Hope all's well with you.
Til next time,
Love & sun
N&K xx
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non-member comment
So easy . . . .
To make a pavlova - don't know what ALL the fuss is about! Glaciers look fab though! Enjoying the blogging. x