Franz Joseph: 21-23 October

It was a long nine hour bus ride from Nelson to Franz Joseph. One of the stops we made was at Punakaiki. This place is known for their pancake rocks on the ocean. The wind was blowing and seas were ruff! It was a very cool sight!

The name makes me hungry...

An awesome blowhole where water shot up from the ocean! 

We were about ten minutes away from Franz Joseph and what should happen? A flat tire… We got to talking to the people on our bus and met two girls from Sweden, Amanda and Emma. Very nice girls.

Whoops!

So we added an hour to our already nine our travels but we finally made it! Franz Joseph is a very, very small town with some stunning mountains at the end of a road! Oh yeah, and a glacier!!

The next day I went to go hike the glacier! What an experience this was! I did a full day hike so I hiked the glacier for about six hours!

We started out with 44 people on the bus. We then split up into four groups. Group one was the first to be on the ice that day and would be making the trail and be the quickest group, therefore four would be the slowest group. I, of course, was in the first group! :P This was great to be able to see how the guide maps out and makes the trail. Even though we were the quick group, we still had plenty of opportunities to stop and take pictures.

B-E-A-utiful! Not a bad place to stop for lunch!

So blue!

Tight squeeze! 

It was a beautiful sunny day full of exercise, ice, and breathtaking surroundings.

That night Feli, Amanda, Emma and I found a local restaurant and got ourselves some pizza. Then we went back to the hostel and had plenty of drinks, chocolate, and sweets. We invited many other people in the hostel to join us in some games and the night was lost in chatting, laughing, and pretending to be animals. ;)

The next day was a very lazy day and just hung out at the hostel and had a Leo movie day. :P I don’t think I have had a day like this since I have been in NZ, so it was nice to relax.

That night I made a chicken peanut sauté and rice dinner for Feli, Amanda, Emma and me and Feli made us chocolate mousse for dessert. Love cooking! A couple hours after dinner, we went on a small walk to go see some glowworms but the trail was close halfway through because of flooding. We still got to see a few glowworms though, so that was nice. 


Then the next morning we packed up again and got ready for another long bus ride to head farther south to Wanaka!