Supermarket cake and empty parking lots

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Last thursday Ina and I spent our first full day together at Franz Josef Glacier. We arrived around 11:30am and emediatly started the 5½h return hike up to Roberts point to get a good look at the glacier. In the beginnig we had perfect hiking weather: Not to warm and a bit cloudy, but not rainy. 15 minutes in ut first started raining, but according to weather reports it should stop again soon so we were still optimistic. Turns out the weather report was wrong and we spend all but 30min of the 6h it took us to get up and back down walking through rain. Walking is a generous term in this case, most of the time you had to climb over rocks and waterfalls. Once we reached the top, we couldn't even enjoy the view. The clouds had build a white wall aroud the platform. The climb down was worse than the way up, because the rain had made everything slippery. Roots that were great support just two hours ago were now as dangerous as ice on the ground. The little suspension bridges inbetwenn were the only thing keeping my mood up. We returned to the carpark with not a single dry bone in our body. Our raincoats and Boots had given up the fight against water a while ago. That nicht we decided to stay in a paid campground with warm showers and cooking facilities, so we had a chance to warm up. Since our Boots eere still wet the seven hour hike to hot pools the next day was out of question. Insted we took a two hour detour to different hot pools were we had to climb through bushes and over riverground to get to them. This time the climb was definetly worth it. Saturday we made our way to Wanaka, where we metnup with another german backpacker and went on a short three hour hike in the afternoon. Afterwards we had a nice bbq at one of wanaka's free bbq stations at the lake. Then we went to a Bar and played some pool before we wanted to go to a bushduff (=party in the bush) 20min outside of town. When we arrived at the parkinglot near the party around 11pm we found out it was canceled afterall. Because campers aren't allowed to Park in town overnight it didn't make sense to drive back to the bar, so we brought our cars (we were a group of five at this point) close together sat in the trunk and put on some music on a speaker. At midnight Ina surprised me with a cake and candels. In the morning we went out for breakfast to celebrate my birthday and then looked at the souvenirshops. Later we went to the indoor swimming pool to have a shower and the back to the cafe to change our phones. Yesterday I spent the day in wanaka again while Ina went on a seven hour hike. In the afternoon we drove the four hours down to milford sound. Today Ina is hiking again and I just borded a boat to go on a cruise into Milfofd Sound.
See you Next time
Giovanna

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