New Zealand or Bust!

We have two weeks of school holidays (school begins for the school year Jan. 28 and goes for 10 weeks, then 2 weeks off, then 10 weeks on, etc. until Dec. 18), so we have taken off for New Zealand. Now we are on the last night of our trip, and I, for one, am melancholy! It has been an amazing time, so I'll begin to describe each of the days.

We left Easter Sunday for Brisbane where our NZ flight would leave from. We visited the Australian Museum, home of Steve Irwin's family, to see the crocodiles and feed the elephants. They put on quite a show, ending with the trainer jumping into the croc's water and swimming away so he'll chase him through the exit, which he does. Show or no show, in the end, no one is really kidding!

Tuesday we landed in Christchurch and stayed the night at a small backpacker's hostel that Ross coined as "definitely hippie." Okay, it was. But very cozy, too, and had a marvelous, enormous cat that we loved all evening. It had a "car-be-que" in the back yard, as well as a converted 1950's bus where the caretakers reside. We put on our sweatshirts and jeans for the first time since being in Tasmania in January. No dogs on the "car-bie" for us - it was cold out there!

Wednesday morning, Day 2, we drove in our slightly okay very used rental car up over Arthur Pass through the Southern Alps from the east coast of New Zealand to the west coast. The pass is where the Aussie-favorite ski resorts are (think Hoo Doo in 1969), and it's also where many scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed. Pat loved it! Aaron, you would have been going crazy - we'll show you pictures! It reminded me of Sonora Pass with the steep grades and beautiful meadows.

We passed through Ross, New Zealand, which was not much, no offence, and stopped only long enough to take a picture of Ross next to the town sign. I would have bought a tee shirt if they'd had a store . . .

By evening we were at our Youth Hostel in Franz Josef just a stone's throw from the glacier. The air was cold, the beer was colder, and our own pasta and sauce tasted great! The most fun about cooking in the big group kitchens is watching all people making their dinners. Since there are probably 7-8 nationalities represented on any given night, the foods, languages, and customs happening all around us are entertaining and educational! We've watched some very interesting breakfasts, particularly, unfold. Rice with canned smoked fish (very sardine-y looking to me!), avocado on toast, oatmeal that looked anything but oatmeal, and many assorted mysterious packages printed in Asian languages being consumed all around us!

Day 3 we spent on an AMAZING hike up to look out over the glacier. It was 12.3 km, 5 and 1/2 hours, and arguably the most interesting hike we've ever taken. We passed over many creeks, including one that we had to bridge ourselves (read Pat and Ross mostly collecting very large rocks and splashing around to set them right for moi).

The hike had three, count them, 3, suspended foot bridges over very very very deep canyons. Anyone who has climbed trees and held harnesses for and with me knows that I am not a fan of things high up. The first went over the actual river from the glacier and was two planks wide and very long. I sang my way across (who doesn't love James Taylor at a time like that?) which does not mean I was dancing and singing. That means I had to SERIOUSLY calm and distract myself to get the heck across. When the second one came up I thought, okay, here we go again, and this one looks nice and small - I can handle this one. That was until Ross looked over half way across and yelled, "Hey Pat, this one goes down really far!!" Oh. And they actually stop and take pictures of the beautiful canyons/waterfalls below halfway across! I'm too afraid I'll run out of verses of Shower the People for that.

We also climbed a contraption that was wooden planks lodged around a rounded rock face with sort-of steps bolted in so that you didn't shimmy right off into the Abyss Below. Good thing I know a lot of James Taylor songs. It ended at the itty bitty picnic table on the perch looking over the glacier. Yea! No it didn't end. It half-wayed at that point, cuz we got to turn around and come back down the same way! Over the same lovely bridges with the same songs! The view from the top was fantastic. It was the guys' first glacier and my second one since 35 years ago in Alaska with my mom and two sisters.

The beer tasted even better that night, and since we could barely walk, laying low playing cards was just what the doctor ordered!