40 Shades of green.

Wine tasting

Another beautiful drive through grassy wilderness and rolling hills, following rivers and lakes the whole way to Queens town... The only traffic is camper vans, you past through towns which are literally a few houses and a shop, then absolutely nothing for another 100 kms.  I did not realise I was such a towny, this is all just a bit desolate... Also our previous 4 months, I have not stopped talking as there is so much to talk about, here I have shut my beak ( much to Brian's relief )as all we seem to say is "oh look at that " or " wow" then that is it.... What do people who live in the country talk about...  or maybe that is the idea... they run out of things to say and move to the country..

Arrowtown 

From Bungy bridge

We eventually arrived at the ski resort town of Queenstown, it is fabulous, like being in the Alps, but without French people skiing over your skies to get in front of you,  or being raped financially in a Alpine restaurant paying £20 for a slice of reheated lasagne ... Our site was at the base of a mountain and overlooking a lake.. after we had pitched twice as a man with only one arm kept asking us to move to another pitch.. I could have torn him limb from limb after the third time, but hey that would have been wrong !!!  As he explained to me he was just security ... ( I wonder how he lost his arm, maybe a very angry Irish man slammed it in the Camper door )  Anyway !! we walked into town, past lovely shops, and pavement cafes , after a yummy lunch we went in search of 'wine tastes' a wine tasting shop, a great idea, you get given a charge card and just help yourself to all these wonderful New Zealand wines, whilst sitting in glorious leather chairs reading papers and magazines, and listening to cool sounds being played... We gave the wines a good old spank and bought a few.. We staggered back to the van and drank more lovely wine ... mmmmmm

Blue Pools

Lake Wanaka

The next day we were off to the Fox Glacier, on route we stopped at the old gold mining town of Arrowtown (there is gold there in them mountains ) it was like stepping back in time, old colonial buildings and oak and sycamore tree avenues shading mining huts, had a real kind of ghost town feel about it , from here we followed a vivid blue river and stopped to watch some lunatics throw themselves off a bridge with a piece of elastic to break their fall... for 15 seconds at £100 , although on reflection, I can't think of any kind of exciting satisfaction that lasts more than 15 seconds !!!!!!We had quite a long drive ahead of us, and a very mountainous one ... it was so gusty and windy that I was shrieking for most of it ... it certainly was a white knuckle drive.. Having being taught to drive in mums 2CV which is like driving in a cardboard box, and when windy like a flag up a staff, I don't like driving in the wind... especially not on a narrow mountain road with sheer drops either side.. oh no sister !! so I managed to talk Brian into stopping for the night at Lake Wanaka, which was a winner as it was lovely, although the white horses on the lake and the windsurfers whizzing about gave some idea of the strength of the wind... We had a very relaxing day and made sure we tried some more lovely wine..

G & B ( can you see pebbles)

Trying to bounce Brian off !!

Mt Cook & Mt Mathison 

The next day was bright sunshine and we had the most amazing journey yet.. we stopped at a rainforest and followed a board walk down to 'the blue pools' crossing lots of suspension bridges which were nice and bouncy for me to jump up and down on and freak Brian out ... the water was aquamarine and with fabulous flat pebbles on the beaches, from here we followed windswept beaches with driftwood strewn along the tideline and watched seals basking on rocks..  it really was the most dramatic of driving sceneries. We found our way to Lake Mathison and did the 2 hour rain forest walk around it hoping to get the picture postcard photo of Mount Cook and Mount Mathison reflected perfectly in it, but of course the clouds had come out and the wind had got up.. we had a lovely walk though.. From here it was onto Fox glacier for the night and to speak to Mum and Jo on skype and see my lovely family.. Be good for Mummy please naughty pesky kids.....

Met this guy , yeah , he was a bit stiff ..

We awoke the next day to a sunny but cold one, and whisked ourselves up to the foot of the Glacier.. it was just fabulous, very shale y and rocky with car sized boulders, you could also see where the trim line used to be and there were very sparkly kettle lakes that had been left behind... as we walked up the glacial riverbed it seemed hard to imagine a huge glacier had been there, it all felt very real and virginal, (virgin on the ridiculous)

Ice ice baby

We stepped across boulder streams and walked higher and higher until we came to the edge of the glacier. It's as if someone has pushed the pause button- a tidal wave of ice heading towards you... it is receding faster than Brian's hairline, but the bluey hue and the ice caves on it were breathtaking.. Nature in it's nakedness, we both felt very much at natures mercy and pondered at how wild flowers and lichen manage to grow on this pretty hostile environment, clinging onto to crevices like a politician clinging onto the truth. We had decided on a helicopter trip to see a birds eye view of the glacier, but after our fabulous walk the helicopters going up every ten minutes buzzing around our heads were like a swarm of mosquitoes and you know how much we love them... so we decided to leave the glacier how we had found it..  we did however see groups clutching their crampons for their two hour hike but only 20 minutes on the ice, being led by a glazed, bored looking guide, trudging wearily up the face for the 12 time that day...

She's as cold as ice !!

We then headed off to Franz Josef glacier, but it had started to rain and you could not see the tops of mountains, so we booked into a very friendly site and spent a lovely afternoon in the glacial hot pools, under a rain forest canopy.. after both staying for far too long and feeling dizzy and weak when we got out, we fell into our camper, and relaxed doing crosswords and reading.. bliss. Brian is doing brilliantly with his ukulele and I asked him to play 40 shades of green which sums this country up wonderfully, so many different greens, it is so verdant, it is difficult to describe,  Gretna Green , Al Green, Gangrene the list goes on and on ....

pancakes rock ..

Message in there somewhere .

It is also a country of 40 shades of grey .... it is tipping down today and the clouds are so low it is like driving through a bonfire...set off further north , this drive was really giving Brian's guns a good workout, crunching gear changings and steering wheel throwing around those hairpin bends.. bottles of wine were being rolled about as were my eyes !!! we stopped at pancake rocks, yep stacks of stylobedded rocks which look just like stack after stack of pancakes, without the maple syrup... pretty amazing..and we waited for the blow hole to blow as it was high tide.. no such luck- empty promises as usual... we were going to stop at Greymouth but as the weather was so awful we thought we would get some more miles under our fanbelt , so ended up at Westport.... firstly stopping at Cape Foulwind... and yes it lived up to it's moniker.... we hopped out and walked along the desolate beach with mist swirling around our heads, then headed down to the headland to see the seal colony.. I ran ahead ( was going a bit stir crazy in the van all day) and decided to hide behind some trees to jump out on poor old Brian and scare the bejesus out of him.... unfortunately the elderly couple who had got in front of Brian were as surprised as I was... I think his pace maker stopped momentarily...I am sure he will be fine just a bit of a fright !... Not so sure about Brian who nearly had a hernia laughing ..... after a lovely hour watching the seals, we headed onto our site, where Brian having collected the laundry climbed into the wrong van...  The German family sitting in it were amused when Brian said to them " well one of us is in the wrong van " you have got to love him , haven't you !!!!!  well haven't you ?