This Haast to be a joke (Mar 31 - Apr 2)

The next morning we checked out at 10 and set off to see Franz Joseph Glacier. This would be my first experience seeing a glacier so I was pretty excited. To get to Franz you had to do a short walk through a forest then there was a long path up to the glacier. It was a very nice walk, and the weather was gorgeous so it made for a pleasant time. You could get pretty close to the glacier so we took some nice pictures, but there were lots of people around, a bit touristy for my taste but still nice. Fox Glacier on the other hand was much quieter, the walk to the glacier was much shorter, and the scenery was a bit nicer (if you couldn't tell I liked Fox Glacier better). We actually snuck passed the little rope telling us to keep back (Oooo the velvet rooooope), and got right up close to the glacier and took some nice pictures (Sidenote: I tried to be a genius and put my memory card in Andy's camera and take pictures, but that didn't work because I had the wrong memory card... I had a cool picture of me lifting up an ice chunck from the glacier and licking it, but it's gone now =( ).

After our glacier filled morning we thought we would go to a town called Haast and stay for the night, instead of rushing through all the way to Wanaka. First of all, this "town" was split into three parts, Haast Beach, Haast Town, and Haast. And even the three combined were smaller than any other town I've seen. I estimated the population to be about 50 - 100, so we eventually found our hostel, which was hard to find because of the town being split into three. We met up with Rebecca and decided then that this was not the place for us, so we opted just to grab some food and head on to Wanaka. We stopped in a place called The Grumpy Cow, which was a fish and chips and small grocery store. I'm pretty sure we actually met the grumpy cow, because when we went up to order we were met by a disgruntled little lady who was NOT happy to have our business. I ordered the fish and chips and asked if she had vinegar and I was answered with a snarl, I'm pretty sure she said no though. Anyway, we just ate and got the eff out of Haast as fast as we could. On our way to Wanaka the car started to overheat, so we had to deal with that for a while, but it worked out in the end.

We called ahead for accomodation and found that everything was already booked up, typical as we arrived there at around 7:30pm. We eventually found a 4 bed ensuite at a YHA hostel, so not BBH, and ended up paying $32 for the night, ugh... but it was all that was left so we just decided to leave the next day and find another place (Sidenote: It was actually a really nice place though, if we were YHA members it would be cheaper, but the view from the dinning area/lounge was really cool and they had a projection screen for movies). That night was the first time I watched my skydive video, which included some interviews with me and the jump, really nice. I am waiting for them to post the video online so I can put it up here.

The next day we moved to Mountain View Hostel, which has an incorrect phone number in the lonely planet and they've been trying to change it for 2 years now and lonely planet still hasn't done anything. So we just had to roll up and hope for the best, it worked out in the end though. This place probably had the best garden of any hostel I've stayed in, mostly grass, but got a lot of sunlight and nice sitting areas and such. After checking in we spent the day fishing, drinking, and eating. Very relaxing, didn't catch any fish but still great time, I didn't actually fish, just drank and watched Andy and Konni fish. We went out at night as well, I can't really remember if it was good or not, so I assume it was amazing. It was good enough that the hostel manager had to come in and wake us up to tell us we had to get out of the room now (check out is at 10am).

Next morning after checking out we hit up Red Star Luxury Burger, which was recommended by an english guy we met the night before. It was pretty delicious, huge burger and good portion of fries, great way to start the day. We then stopped in at Puzzling World which was pretty dope. It's filled with illusions and has a maze inside, there are also puzzle at the front of the place that you can just go in and do for free, so that was nice. On our way out some girls were kinda giggling and pointing at me, as we were driving away they were waving too, then I realized it was Alice and her friends that I met in Auckland (the girl who woke up Janine for me and pretty much secured my ride to Bay of Islands and got my whole trip started!). So I was a bit upset I didn't get to speak with them, but it was so weird seeing them there after all this time..it was almost...puzzling...=)

After that we hit the road again on our way to Queenstown, the adventure capitol of the world.

Peace & Love