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Published: March 21st 2007
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Now, the Southern Drive into Queenstown was quite something - the road runs along the east side of the lake, which is shaped like a thunder bolt - or (according to local Maori legend) a dying devil! And it was, no surprises here, pretty spectacular! (I'm getting bored of writing that - so you must be getting bored of reading it - but its soooo true! If you can think of some synonyms that I haven't thought of........)
Arrival in Queenstown was uneventful and we spent a few hours strolling around and its a very pleasant town - got a bit more hustle and bustle than most kiwi towns - although they are mostly tourists! After a steak for dinner (mmmmm meat!!!) we hit the road again, carrying on around the lake to Gloenorchy - but not before hunting down a petrol station for the old grey banger - in an attempt to avoid these things coming in threes!!! The sunset over the lake was gorgeous and before long we pulled up on a Saber + car shaped layby and hit the DVDs! Sunrise was hidden by the enormous mountains that encircled us and the day dawned bright and
breezy - with a trip to paradise onthe cards! Although I couldn't imagine that what we had already seen could be rivalled! unfortunately the road to Paradise was long and dusty and not the smoothest of rides and we were forced to admit defeat!
Next stop was Arrowtown about 20km North of Queenstown and the cutest most characterful kiwi town we had come across! it was so sweet! Sheltered by the mountains it was a true suntrap and the thriving vegetation made it something a little different - though still pretty awesome! There was an historic chinese village which made for interesting exploration - as well as a LOTR film site - Jen got quite excited about this!! Then it was time to say goodbye to Emma and the Grey Banger and head North - to Lake Wanaka! Once again - the drive was unbeatable - I know I said that already - they get better and better! This time the view was dampened somewhat by driving rain and as a small treat to ourselves we paid for a shower! Feeling clean and shiny we took off to the west of the lake for a campsite and dinner!
Wanaka's main site of interest was Puzzling World - a tiny little set-up full of crazy little puzzles and mind benders - we spent a good few hours failing the mini tasks miserably before taking to Haast's Pass for the West Coast. The weather was neither good nor bad and occassional breaks in the cloud made walks in the surrounding forest quite pleasant - except for the ever increasing numbers of sandflies! Yuck!!! The on and off rain meant that the roadsides were teaming with mini waterfalls and cascades, so many stops and starts punctuated the drive! This time our destination was the Fox Glacier and enquiries at a i-site on route revealed that the forecast was not good! Hoping for the best we headed that way anyway (there weren't too many alternatives!) and awoke to snow capped mountains, torrential downpours and howling gales - thus the helihike we had planned was doomed! After a splash out breakfast and much deliberation we decided to drive as close as possible and sneak a few peeks! This done - it was onwards - to the Franz Josef glacier - this was was much more accessible and we were able to walk to
quite a few vantage points to see the ice face of the glacier. The drive between them was through lush rainforest and quite a spectacle in itself - made by the alternating rain and sun which meant that the leaves steamed! On route, it slowly dawned on me that we had less than a week left and approximately half of the island still to go! Uh-oh! Given that the weather wasn't great we opted to hotfoot it up the West Coast with brief stops for the sights and sounds! That evening we made it to Greymouth. All I can say is blurgh! Thats really all you can say about Greymouth, its a town of nothing much - unfortunately by this point the DVD player in Saber had taken a dislike to us (although the whole trip it had been misbehaving - blasting at a few hundred decibels for no apparent reason!) this time though it was so much of a dislike that it refused to accept DVDs and CD's. Cionsultations with the Spaceship company revealed that there was a qualified radio dude in Greymouth who could take a look - guess what?! He was closed! We were forced to spend
a night! Not much else to say about it really - we did spend a good hour trying to locate an internet cafe - without any luck!!! In this day and age! Pah!
A visit that morning to the radio dude confirmed our worst fears - the DVD player was doomed! I wondered at this point if Jen would cope! She looked like she was about to pop a few blood vessels! I suggested that she vent it on a spaceship rep over the phone (well, I didn't want her wrath! poor guy that's all I can say!) This meant that we were compensated with a free days hire! Go girl!!!! After that all too lengthy stopover we headed North! To the Abel Tasman......
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