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Published: April 16th 2006
Well I've got to Queenstown now. Turns out it's a brash, cheesy tourist town determined to suck you dry of all your money, but is still redeemed by the marvellous country around it. I can't really complain since
so many people (including myself) come here for the scenery and activities that people are naturally going to cash in as it is, to be honest, the only game in town except possibly real estate. And like I said, the country around is rather smashing.
In order to get here I (perhaps foolishly) embarked on a trip cross country trip with Brent, his girlfriend Hayley and my cousin, Jessica across Arthur's Pass and down the West Coast in order to see some of what Brent describes as 'real New Zealand'. The hills along Arthurs pass (when you get out of the plains) are fantastically lush and covered with waterfalls as a byproduct of the (surprisingly absent) rain. I didn't get many pictures because there were few good places to stop in the pass itself and what I did get was blurred by moving car and dirty windows. Oh well.
The west coast of New Zealand is very sparsely populated and extremely 'local', as it were. Highlights include a bridge with a 'Give way to trains' sign and no way to see if trains are coming and, more famously, the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers (two big walls of ice surounded by rainforest and mountains and stuff). We decided to stop for the night at Franz Josef, which was the first one we came to.
Our sleeping arrangements were very interesting. In a move to inspire true budget travellers everywhere, Brent suggested that we sleep outside in the Franz Josef glacier car park (not outside in Franz Josef village because we're 'not tramps'). He had previously mentioned sleeping outside under a tarpaulin but I thought he was joking. Turns out the only bit he was joking about was the tarp. Amazingly, I went along with this and dug into the dirt under the car.
A couple of hours later, it started to rain so we got in the car.
After less than restful night of not sleeping, and after going into town at 6am to wait for the shops to open, we loked at the glaciers. We couldn't actually go right up to them but they still looked cool (literally).
The rest of the journey involved everyone except Brent trying to sleep, Brent shouting at camper vans and visiting nothing little towns at least 50km away from the nearest petrol station.
The next day in Queenstown we went up the local mountain range, the Remarkables and played in the snow, then off roaded to a deserted mining town with me out the top and tried to sleep outside again, this time on a tarp. But, yet again, we went inside, this time due to marauding possums.
More later!
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Re: Possums
Good thing you had your rabies jabs!