Long Way to the Glaciers

Blenheim to Franz Josef Weather: started out rainy, and then turned to sunny clear skies; temps in the high 60s

LONG day of driving. REALLY LONG. Today we covered over 300 miles. It was raining when we left this morning, but quickly turned into sunny skies! Yeah! Sunshine makes me so much happier... especially when I'm stuck in a car for 10 hours!

Peter's breakfast of champions- a "white coffee" & a Tim Tam

We tried to take a video of the water draining in a sink so that we could show which way the water swirls. It never quite worked out and we never did get an answer. Those New Zealand sinks & toilets are tricky. I gave up & just took a picture of an empty sink.

Trying to get a shot of the water draining

There are a ton of pull offs and scenic outlooks on New Zealand roads. We definitely took advantage of them today!

Just your typical NZ scenery

I got to drive

We stopped in St. Arnaud to see Lake Rotoiti. It was so serene & beautiful. As we were taking in the scenery ducks were taking over the area surrounding our car. They were pretty crazy and wanted any food they could find... including my protein drink.

Lake Rotoiti

The ducks organized a sit in

He wanted some of my protein drink

They liked Peter more than he liked them.

As our drive continued Peter & I enjoyed a little game of "Sheep. Cow." We invented it. Every time you saw a sheep you yelled, "sheep." Every time you saw a cow you yelled, "cow." (Oh, it works for deer too, but we saw less of those.) Well, when Peter saw the following hillside he yelled, "sheep." I called shenanigans on that since those were obviously stones, not sheep! After a short heated disagreement I made him pull over so I could zoom in with our super sweet camera lens (Thanks, Mom & Dad Miller) & see who was right....

Hillside with white specks. Sheep or stones?

Damn! They were sheep!

We drove a little further to outside of Murchison where we visited New Zealand's longest swing bridge. We crossed the bridge & took a short hike. (Lesson for today: I do not like swing bridges, especially very long ones with several people moving on them at once. Much scarier than anticipated.)

Peter on the suspension bridge

Pretty view of below

I forced a smile. I really wanted to get off that bridge!

Then we headed out to the coast where we stopped in Westport for lunch. I had a chili con carne baked potato and Peter had a "kiwi meat roll with pork." He's so much more adventurous. He also got a super sweet gigundous peppermint patty brownie thingy that was one of the best things I've ever tasted! Yum.

We drove a little further & finally saw west coast ocean! ... at least I thought it was ocean, then I learned it's actually the Tasman Sea. Oh, well. It was still awesome!

Ocean!?

We continued our travels down the west coast to Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks & blow hole. The blow hole was not active due to low tide, but the pancake rocks & the rest of the scenery were pretty cool.

Pancake rocks

More rocks

West coast NZ

We stopped in the gift shop and learned that possum is often mixed with merino wool in New Zealand wool products. Who knew?!

Yes, possum & sheep

Eww, possum!

As we were leaving I casually mentioned to the cashier that we were heading to the glaciers. She seemed concerned. "You know you're still almost 4 hours away, right?" Uh, yes. I think we knew we were that far away, but it was just beginning to dawn on us that maybe we should make less frequent scenery stops & try to get to Franz Josef before dark. It was almost 4 pm. Time to get moving.

We continued down the coast and that's where things take a turn to the less happy moments. We passed through Greymouth and Hokitika. We then decided that we REALLY needed gas. Unfortunately we passed through Ross and then Harihari with no luck. Their gas stations were closed. Shortly after leaving Harihari the low fuel light came on and I started to really worry (actually I started to get really mad & bitchy). We drove 45 kms to Whataroa. Unfortunately the petrol station there was closed. We still had 40 kms to go 'til Franz Josef. Now, you might be thinking, "40 kms, that's nothing. You can make that on barely any gas! Wrong. If you are thinking that, then you obviously have never driven the hilly, winding, rugged roads of New Zealand! Peter wanted to just go for it, but I refused to. Luckily, the gods intervened. Some random old man drove by to tell us we could go across the street to the inn and have the bartender "ring up" the gas station owner to come out and get us some gas (for a nominal $20 fee). Disaster averted.

Thank God for this gas station!

We arrived in Franz Josef around 7:30 pm and checked into our motel. We headed out to the supermarket to pick up some stuff for our glacier hike lunch tomorrow. We bought shredded chicken, Parmesan, avocado and chiabatta bread for what will surely be fantastic sandwiches! We had a late dinner at Speight's Landing and went to home and headed to bed. Long day! Glaciers tomorrow!

First sign of a glacier

Small farm next to our hotel in Franz Josef