Drive to Queenstown, Puzzling World and on to Franz Joseph

We would have arrived in Queenstown much sooner if a new trend (that would continue for the entire trip) had not started.

One thing you will not about NZ is that there are some amazinly clear, fresh, cold, creeks, rivers and lakes running all over it. The only problem with this is that Craig decided that the feature of his trip to NZ was to swim in any and all of these bodies of water, no matter how cold or how much clothing he had on.

He found these wonderful bodies of water even off the main track (we stoped for a toilet brac and he wondered off into the forest and came back a little while later with his clothes in hand and him dripping wet, he had found a clear, shallow creek and decided to have a quick dip).

Ohh, did you see the pic of our amazing spaceship cloud?

Once we reached Queenstown we found some accommodation (at the "Melbourne Inn" we thought it was funny). We had a great dinner at a local pub in town, went to bed and by breakfast the following day we were in Arrowtown. I had eaten something for breakfast, but then decided I was still hungry so I went back inside and spied a yummy looking apple pie, I ordered, the lovely lass behind the counter asked if I would like a little bit of berry sauce with my pie, sounded lovely I said and a little while later she came out with the most decadent apple pie ever, and it was delicious!

We then wondered down to the Ford of Bruinen (where Frodo and Arwen cross and the Ringwraiths get clobered by a river of water horsies), Kelly got to ride her horsing along the banks (not sure if she's Frodo and Arwen or a Ringwraith).

We left Arrowtown by a very very windy, thin road that leveled out to a great viewing spot (hence the panaramic pics of the town), we continued on past the Bra fence (apparently women stop here, take off a bra and attach it to the fence, and it seems alot of women do thisk, we did not even stop I'm afraid). Next stop - Puzzling World in Wanaka.

This place is alot of fun. We explored the interier exhibits, 3D pictures, a room full of faces that follow you (creaped me out so I did a quick circut and left), these faces by the way are of some really sweet people like Mother T, Einstein, etc, but still, these giant white (hollow but look 3D) faces following me, eek! There was the tilted room that gave me serious trouble to enter, I can't explain how wiered it made me feel, look oober motion sick-vertigo combo deal. I finally discovered I could trick my brain into letting me go in as long as walked looking at my feet (just don't look up again ahhh!). Again I was out of there pretty quickly. Then Kelly and I become hobbits through stage tricks.

Before tackeling the maze we had a quick pit stop to the toilet, usually not worth mentioning, except here boys and girls had seperate entries but ended up in the same room (see pic) very odd

We wandered around the maze and located all of our coloured corners (still not as fit and healthy as I would have liked at this point in our trip - 8 month mark of my CFS), so we cheated and ducked out the emergency excit rather than continue through to find our way back out, I wasn't the only one tired after that walk.

Unfortunatly I don't have a pic of this, but we pulled in to get petrol before leaving town and while the boys arranged petrol, myself and blushing Kelly, enjoyed the view - 6 young, very hot, buff boys in absolutaly nothing but Superman undies, filling up their car with petrol and kicking around a ball, it was very entertaining ;)

After several more hours of driving (there where many many many hours of driving in this trip), we arrived and Franz Joseph. We spent a nice night in a backpackers, Craig and I taking advantage of the spa which gave us a chance to meet a few other tourists. I was very keen for this day to end, because tomorrow we would be getting into a helicopter and flying up onto the glacier (= me being very excited because of the whole snow thing again and also because I had never been in a helicopter). It was fantastic! If you haven't had a helicopter flight before then I thoroughly recomend you do, it was the best fun, amazing views that you simply can't get any other way, I loved it! Seeing the glacier was realy mind blowing when you look at this giant (see if you can spot the other helicopters in the pics, then you can get an idea of what kind of scale I'm talking about here), giant frozen river. This glacier is moving at about 1 metre per year and that's really scary if you ask me. You lool at it and think its just this huge mountain of ice, stationary, but infact it is carving its way through the landscape every day - very cool.

The last exciting thing was finding a campervan painted with the Wild Rumpus (Where the Wild Things Are), Craig and I had planned on doing that same sort of thing to our van many many years ago when we took our little 3 month trip up the east coast of Australia, but it didn't end up fitting into the budget :(