2 friends 1 camper and too many tim tams; From Queenstown to Wellington

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Our next stop from Queenstown, after a walk in the morning which involved me falling down a ditch (yes it was amusing and quite impressively clumsy of me) was Fox Glacier. We walked up to the glacier and i have to admitt i wasnt massively impressed...i think id built expectations of a spectacular towering mountain of ice. However, i was more impressed by Franz Josef Glacier which we walked to the next day!

We stayed in a campsite near Franz Josef, one of the dept of conservation sites which are all over and a cheap price at $6. I also saw my first possum here, that wasn't in the form of road kill, which pleased me! Whilst in Franz Josef we also visited the hot pools which was a nice luxury and also a requirement due to our lack of showers in DOC campsites.


Our next stop off was just down the road in an old gold mining town, Goldsbrough; There were actually a few people at the site looking for gold. The campsite was full of strange little birds too, called weka, they waddle around and look wingless! More importantly, this night was the beginning of our lord of the rings screening; as i had never seen these films, full of NZ scenery (yes... our pimp camper has a dvd player). I am now a fully feldged Lord of the Rings fan.

As the trip has gone on, we have also built up a good collection of camper van meals cooked in our little kitchen; from stir fry to eggs of many varieties. However our main food focus has been Tim Tams, the well known aussie biscuit, which we have now sampled many varieties of (dark chocolate being the current leader).

From Goldsbrough we made the drive up to Abel Tasman National Park. Unfortunately we didn't have the best weather for walking here and i'm sure the beaches look better in the sunshine but it was still worth seeing and was the first strip of beaches that we had really visited in New Zealand. We then spent a night in Nelson, one of NZs most liveable towns, according to the lonely planet. It did have several sreets of nice little cafes etc. but i think if I was going to live somewhere it would be Queenstown. In general, the more North we've driven, the less charming the towns are. But to be fair, we didnt spend long in Nelson as it ws a stopping point before getting the ferry to the North island from Picton (a town that seemed to be stuck in the 90s).

We arrived into Wellington, probably the biggest town we'd been in so far, after the 3 hour ferry ride. It was a lively place and felt quite like a lot of the cities in the UK. The quayside was pretty in places, but a bit like a building sight in others, although we did enjoy a visit to the Te Papa museum which had a lot of information about the history of New Zealand (something I actually knew very little about). We spent a night just outside of Wellington before driving North to meet Diddler/David and his girlfriend Ailin.

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