Since it was less than 5 hours of travel time from Queenstown to Franz Josef Glacier, we took our time getting out of Q-town - walking around the lake and one last trip to the pool (3rd in total). She enjoyed it and we soaked in yet another perfect sunny morning in Queenstown.
The drive was (yet again) spectacular. Queenstown's region - Central Otago - is quite dry. Many of the mountains are rocky, dry, and just have some low scrub growing on them. The good thing is that, yet again, they've got lots of lakes. Seeing beautiful lakes surrounded by snow-capped peaks never gets old.
Then we crossed pretty abruptly into lust rainforest. With locations like Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier and with people describing the West Coast as "rugged" and "windy", I figured it would be cold and resemble Washington's coast - or even Alaska's. Not so, or at least not today. It was like Hawaii on the wet side of one of those islands - mountainous with rainforests and low clouds ready to unload at any time. We checked into a hotel with lots of backpackers and younger people going around New Zealand. Oh, and it has laundry facilities (checked that box for the trip).
Pretty quickly, we left the hotel and went to the Franz Josef Glacier. It looked like a big hike and it was - Victoria went the whole way! Ok, much of the way she went sitting on my shoulders, but she was good. I took the picture of the drone ban to keep Alex from feeling jealous of missing out on this. Lots of waterfalls, raging river flowing from the glacier, lots of people walking up and back. Glad we did it and glad we didn't get too close (more on that below).
So certain cultures are good at certain things. Inuit supposedly have 35 words for ice. Brits have an astonishing skill with swearing. Well, I believe that Kiwis share the Australian skill of celebrating great things to see in nature by explicitly identifying the risks. I thought Australians had the market cornered with signs and pictures involving people falling off cliffs or a life-like death adder camouflaged in the leaves in the tourist center at Kakadu National park. Or the following sign discouraging one from swimming with crocodiles (the sign below is from my visit in 2008).
Skip this paragraph to avoid PTSD. Much like rugby, New Zealand wins the blunt signage championship. There are lots of signs on the road about the dangers of driving drowsy, driving to the conditions, letting people pass (YES!), etc. At the glacier, this sign (below) at the end of the trail shows news clippings of people who died near where we were. Another sign, which I didn't photograph, has clippings of parents seeing their child crushed by ice falling from the glacier, complete with excavation equipment digging the remains out of the ice. While they lack in lethal animals (see Australia for that), they are explicit in sharing the dangers they do have.
While hiking, we passed a group of people and one guy joked "Do I get to ride on your shoulders to the top?" Well we bumped into him (Sam) as we were returning from dinner in town. Quick note on dinner, they had the Cubs-Dodgers game on. Anyhow, he asked if we would like to join him and his crew at the Monsoon (the on-property pub, "when it rains, we pour"). I wasn't sure, but I saw that they offered desserts, so I took Victoria there for a sundae. It was fun to chat with them - he and girlfriend live in Connecticut, they were with family who live in Australia, and another couple from San Francisco was there. Anyhow, very sociable place. In different circumstances, it might have been fun to hang out there for the evening. With that, we wrapped up and I wrote some of this.
[Editor's Note: We're a day late on posting this because the internet was too slow to get photos up last night]
The drive was (yet again) spectacular. Queenstown's region - Central Otago - is quite dry. Many of the mountains are rocky, dry, and just have some low scrub growing on them. The good thing is that, yet again, they've got lots of lakes. Seeing beautiful lakes surrounded by snow-capped peaks never gets old.
Then we crossed pretty abruptly into lust rainforest. With locations like Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier and with people describing the West Coast as "rugged" and "windy", I figured it would be cold and resemble Washington's coast - or even Alaska's. Not so, or at least not today. It was like Hawaii on the wet side of one of those islands - mountainous with rainforests and low clouds ready to unload at any time. We checked into a hotel with lots of backpackers and younger people going around New Zealand. Oh, and it has laundry facilities (checked that box for the trip).
Pretty quickly, we left the hotel and went to the Franz Josef Glacier. It looked like a big hike and it was - Victoria went the whole way! Ok, much of the way she went sitting on my shoulders, but she was good. I took the picture of the drone ban to keep Alex from feeling jealous of missing out on this. Lots of waterfalls, raging river flowing from the glacier, lots of people walking up and back. Glad we did it and glad we didn't get too close (more on that below).
So certain cultures are good at certain things. Inuit supposedly have 35 words for ice. Brits have an astonishing skill with swearing. Well, I believe that Kiwis share the Australian skill of celebrating great things to see in nature by explicitly identifying the risks. I thought Australians had the market cornered with signs and pictures involving people falling off cliffs or a life-like death adder camouflaged in the leaves in the tourist center at Kakadu National park. Or the following sign discouraging one from swimming with crocodiles (the sign below is from my visit in 2008).
Skip this paragraph to avoid PTSD. Much like rugby, New Zealand wins the blunt signage championship. There are lots of signs on the road about the dangers of driving drowsy, driving to the conditions, letting people pass (YES!), etc. At the glacier, this sign (below) at the end of the trail shows news clippings of people who died near where we were. Another sign, which I didn't photograph, has clippings of parents seeing their child crushed by ice falling from the glacier, complete with excavation equipment digging the remains out of the ice. While they lack in lethal animals (see Australia for that), they are explicit in sharing the dangers they do have.
While hiking, we passed a group of people and one guy joked "Do I get to ride on your shoulders to the top?" Well we bumped into him (Sam) as we were returning from dinner in town. Quick note on dinner, they had the Cubs-Dodgers game on. Anyhow, he asked if we would like to join him and his crew at the Monsoon (the on-property pub, "when it rains, we pour"). I wasn't sure, but I saw that they offered desserts, so I took Victoria there for a sundae. It was fun to chat with them - he and girlfriend live in Connecticut, they were with family who live in Australia, and another couple from San Francisco was there. Anyhow, very sociable place. In different circumstances, it might have been fun to hang out there for the evening. With that, we wrapped up and I wrote some of this.
[Editor's Note: We're a day late on posting this because the internet was too slow to get photos up last night]
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