From cold to hot in New Zealand

Dear Readers,

We spent one more night at the motel at Joseph Franz. Early the second morning we caught the van to the Glacier Park. This was an old dirty van that was used to haul backpackers to and from. For $25 he took us about ten miles up the mountain to the Glacier Park were a real and active glacier was. On the way, he pointed out how they can't keep the road from washing away. This section of New Zealand receives the most rainfall. Even though we were in the tall mountains, the forest was rainforest complete with silver ferns. The driver pointed out a group of large wild deer that was standing near the river. Of course I had seen deer before but these were large with tall antlers. They were a gift from the emperor of Austria. These were left in the wild because people paid lots of money to hunt them. It was quite a hike to the glacier. They had pictures of the glacier throughout the decades and how it had expanded, receded, left a large lake at one time, always changing. This decade it was receding but it was still hugh. The water was calm and in a large river bed. If it rains, they told us, the area can be flooded in a minute. The path down was easy but then it was a mile along the river bed to reach the actual glacier. A fence keeps people from climbing onto the glacier without a guide. People aren't allowed to climb into the blue cave where the water comes out. Years before the fence, people had been killed by the falling ice.

We watched large backpacker tours head up on the ice. They were young! Some were Chinese, Korean, others German and French. We hiked back and took a trail through the rainforest. It's so quiet because they are no animals-didn't even see birds. At noon the van returned and picked us up. We ate lunch at the helicopter tour place. It costs 500 a person for twenty minutes in the helicopter. I often saw four helicopters at a time on the glacier. After lunch, we headed to the hot pool spa where we soaked our sore legs in glacier hot pools and enjoyed a massage. After dinner we were taken back to our motel. We talked to the owner who called the busdriver (everyone knows everyone) to line up our pick up the next day. She brought over some cereal and fruit for breakfast.

The next morning we were off to Queenstown. This was an all day trip over the mountains. We went by Mt. Cook's glacier, stopped by mountain pull offs to see the scenery, and rode by the gorgeous coast where there were hugh rocks and seals on the beach. We marveled at the large lakes and changing scenery. Slowly the mountains gave way to arid plans where we saw winery after winery. Here they grow all the fruits and vegetables for the country and export. They have to irrigate from the large mountain rivers. We got to Queenstown late in the afternoon we were dropped off at a new hotel. After the motel, I was very happy to see a regular room, air conditioning, and TV. We headed right out to the downtown area. Queenstown is built on hills, worse than Staunton. We walked straight down and then straight up after we found a restaurant to eat in. The next day was a free day so I immediately picked a steamboat tour of the lake for the next day. We didn't have time to sit around! We had to see everything.