intermission...

sitting on the plane, minutes away from departure to head back to SF.
almost caught up with the blogging. 2 days shy of the complete
adventure. will post the last few days on the flip side.

it has been amazing to be a world away for a bit of time. it was such
a sampler trip of this adventurous country. 3 weeks went by incredibly
fast, I have a long to-do list for my next trip down here. thinking it
is going to be "mountains, rivers and breweries".... and 3 weeks just
won't be enough next time around.

see ya on the flip side. or second Tuesday, as I Like to think of it
(I leave NZ at 3:40pm on tuesday, and get back to CA at 6am Tuesday).

-girl wandering. :)

farm fresh dinner in our little house

we arrived at the hostel in te anau while it was still daylight! I
think it wax a first for us! the private room we had booked turned out
to be a bedroom in a little 2 bedroom house shared with a "nice
couple". a delight to have space to live, cook, spread out, and a
couch to sit on for an evening. didn't know how much we missed the
homey comforts until we had them for a night.

drank one of our yummy bottles of wine with our home cooked farmers
market dinner, and put off the packing and repacking till morning.
prolly my least favorite part of this kind of travel is lugging my
suitcase in and out of different accomodations everyday, and needing
to unpack and repack everyday for the activity of the day. we did so
many different things on this trip that this cycle was a constant, and
taking blowing it off for a night was decadent!

coming onto fiordlands

the steep jagged mountains of queenstown and wanaka gave way to the
lush mounded mountains of the fiordlands. getting excited for our
overnight cruise on the sound.

driving snacks

little late afternoon snack tray was in order. rice crackers with
pate, fresh blue cheese and radishes from the farmers market. good
living!

south out of queenstown along the lake

it was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in queenstown, and everyone was
out and about, catching sun on every piece of lawn or beach to be
found. we drove out of town, and headed another 2 hours onto te anau.

wine stop in queenstown

made a quick stop in queenstown to pick up some wine for the cruise in
doubtful sound. heather navigated us to a little she remembered where
we could sample wines before buying. settled on 2 bottles of pinot
noir from the southern mountain region we were in.

tourist stop in arrow town

made a mid-afternoon stop in arrowtown, an old mining town, just
outside of queenstown. cute, and getting built up with shops. grabbed
a beer at the local arrow brewery and chatted with the brewers. good
beer, good people. we are missing their special brew IPA and the south
coast oyster season opener party by a week. have to keep that in mind
for the next trip.

the windy road down

our daily self portrait!

out of wanaka to queenstown

left wanaka early afternoon, and drove over another mountain pass
towards queenstown. amazing view from the tip if the pass looking out
over the remarkable mountains, and down to the lake and town of
queenstown.

Saturday farmers market in wanaka

we decided to try and arrive in te anau that evening in daylight, and
with enough time to make dinner for a change. heather found the little
garners market, so we lucked up dome fresh bread, cheese, veggies and
mint honey lamb sausages to cook up for dinner.

sunshine, oh sunshine!

still reeling a bit from the damp and rainy weather we have had, it
was awesome to soak up some sun! when I packed up for this trip, I had
a much more summery view of things... and have been lugging around a
suitcase full of shorts, bathing suits and tank tops. weather has
never been too cold, but it has also not Been the endless summer I
quite thought. ha. had to buy a fleece and some thermal leggings along
the way. feel like a bit of a dork for my poor planning... not like I
don't have a dresser full of the right stuff at home or anything?!
luckily, all is available here.

good morning wanaka

arrived late in the evening, found the hostel, and passed out from
exhaustion in about 1 minute flat.

woke up sat morning to a bright and lovely day in wanaka. small
mountain town along a lake. prolly what tahoe was 50 Years ago. our
agenda for the day was driving to te anau (2 hours south west of
queenstown), so we allowed ourselves a relaxed morning to get some
breakfast, explore town and write a few More postcards. we have spent
so litttle time sitting still, so it was really nice to hang at an
outdoor cafe and watch Saturday morning go by.

stunning sunset coming through the mountains

the road led us from the coastline into the mountains... we hauled up
and over a few passes, and followed along a bunch of rivers. the
stunning sunset was a great cap to an already amazing day!

heathers contribution

heather collected some interesting driftwood and mica rocks and left
her contribution.

franz Josef to wanaka...

since we decided to postpone our glacier hike by a day, we got back
from the hike and had to jump right intothe car for the 4+ hour drive
down to wanaka. so glad we decided to hit the glacier on the day
without rain tho! luckily it was a gorgeous drive. saturated from the
satcom the glacier, heather and I just took in the scenery from the
car, with a few stops along the wAy for some quick pics.

heading south, after clearing the mountains that house the franz Josef
and fox glaciers, we popped back out to the coast and came upon this
beach with all sorts of natural sculptures made of driftwood and
rocks. went as far as the eye could see in both directions, and seems
like most folks passing by add a little something to the beach.

final descent

after a full day of hiking (at least 4-5 hours on the glacier), we
made our way back to solid ground. it was an amazing hike and
education. spent most of the day with my jaw dropped in awe of our
surroundings! unforgettable experience.

tip of the dirt pile looking back on valley

we had to wait a few minutes on top of the dirt as each group needed
space to descend the steep hill one by one. great spot to sit and
absorb a little bit before returning to earth... :)

made it off the ice... still need to descend the dirt pile

patches of sun above and below us

starting to come down...

looking up the glacier at the dirt triangle I pointed out in one of
the first pictures. at the highest point, we were just up to the left
side of the triangle.

ice climbers

the guide company also runs day long ice climbing trips (Tony little
specs of people in middle of picture)... definitely doing that if I
make it back some day!

coming out the bottom!

the tunnel was a lot longer than I had expected, with curves, bumps
and drops along the way. got a bit wet, but totally worth it!

heather climbing into the ice tunnel

our group lucked out and were allowed to slide through a tunnel cut
out if the ice by water. the guide had set a rope inside, and one by
one we slid (bumping and grinding reallly) through the tunnel!

looking back into the valley from behind ice waves

I was pretty surprised how far up onto the glacier our group wandered.
our guide was a little surprised as well.

ice "waves"

making our way through the ice waves

moving upwArd, we zigzagged through the ice fields that had an overall
formation that looked like giant waves.

glowing blue

our guide gave us a good talk about the blue appearance of the ice.
has to do with light rays being bent a distorted in the ice crystals,
and all that reflects back is the blue. she was super funny in
breaking off pieces of the ice, and making sure that we were aware
that the ice itself is not really blue, just appears that way in
context of the glacier. good thing too cuz I was secretly hatching a
plan on how I was going to bring a hunk of blue NZ ice home. j/k. ha.
I can only imagine the range of off the wall questions the guides have
to answer.

looking back...

the surface of the ice looked like a fairly level incline looking up,
but when you looked back you could see that it was a series of
fractured mounds. see the dude standing on the far side of the chasm?
again. puts the scale in perspective.

continuing up

we ultimately hike up to the dirt triangle area in the center of the
picture. a lot farther than it looks!

hiking through the blue ice

our journey up the glacier led us through a couple of tight spots! the
ice was also freshly "cleaned" in the rain over the previous two days,
so it was super bright and blue.