Adventures: New Zealand South Island Tour 16-21 November 2008

This morning I got up and went for a walk along the lake in Queenstown. The sunrise was beautiful. We loved Queenstown. It is a real tourist trap, however.
The coach picked us up about 8:30 am at our hotel, then went to the main bus station to pick up some more passengers. As I looked out the window I thought I saw Uncle Mark. We were both astounded at this man who looked just like him. We thought he would get on our bus but he did not.

We drove north and left the sunny day behind. The further north we went the more cloudy and rainy it became. It seems that we had sunny days every other day on this trip.

We headed for the town of Franz Josef, named after the glacier there. We will spend the night there. On the way we passed the highest waterfall in that area, Thunder Creek Falls. The bus stopped so that we could walk down to it and get pictures.

Sunrise over Queenstown.

Uncle Mark look alike waiting for the bus.

Mountains surrounding Queenstown.

Beautiful glacier lakes.

Tasman Sea coastline.

Many narrow one vehicle bridges.

Tasman Sea.

Thunder Creek Falls.

Thunder Creek Falls.
Upon reaching Franz Josef we were driven to our hotel. After checking in we caught the shuttle out to the glacier, about 6 km from where we were staying. It was very rainy and cold. This area of New Zealand gets 5 to 7 meters of rain a year and the top of the glacier gets 50 meters of snow in a year. The glacier is advancing a meter a day. The shuttle driver had umbrellas that we borrowed because we had to walk 10 minutes to the viewing platform for the glacier. Jay's umbrella was faulty and would not stay open. It was very funny to see him struggling with it.