I write to you about my final days in New Zealand on my final day. My plane leaves at 8pm tonight. I can’t believe my trip is already over. After leaving Hokitika, I only had one new place to see, Wanaka. I stopped in Franz Josef first, for the second time, for a few more days before heading to my last new New Zealand destination. I arrived in Franz Josef and hung around for the free soup, and then decided to go for another run. Franz Josef has a lot of little trails nearby and it wasn’t raining, so I wanted to take full advantage of it. Plus, I’m kind of in training for an obstacle course I will partake in in March in England. Since the next day was my glacier heli hike, I wanted to see how far up a certain trail I could get to today. It was one recommended to me by someone I had met along the way. I went a decent distance, but ended up settling for a small reflection lake instead of the summit. It was still beautiful, and the sky had cleared enough I got a clear view of some kind of snow capped mountain. I don’t know if it was the glacier or not. I had the room to myself that night which was cool. My book was getting interesting, so I called it in early to read. I woke up the following morning and it was raining. I had a feeling my hike would get cancelled, but I hadn’t received any word about it yet. There was another trail nearby I decided to check out. This one went to a swing bridge and it was awesome. I don’t know how many of you have been on a swing bridge, but it is a trippy feeling. Especially over a roaring glacier river. I see the water below me, and I know it’s moving swiftly, and I know it’s freezing. I always imagine a scene from Indiana Jones where the bridge collapses, and I wonder if I will be able to hold on like Indy does, or if I will fall into the river? Then I’m curious how I would react falling into the fierce and freezing river. Would I be able to make it to shore? Needless to say, the bridge did not collapse. None of the bridges I have been on have collapsed. And I’m pretty sure I would be able to hang on like Indy anyway. I wanted to get some lunch before my hike, so I raced back. The weather was still crap; this wasn’t good. I have met a lot of people on my trip, and of everyone who was scheduled to do the heli hike, I only know of one couple who was able to do it. When talking to reception, they said in the last 90 days they were able to do about 3 flights. And they usually do 3 flights a day. With the feeling that I wasn’t going to go on my hike I made my way to check in. Of course they refunded me everything. The only thing I was bummed about was there was an all day hike I was going to do if my hike was cancelled. But since I didn’t get the official word until after 1, my day was shot. I decided to mop around the wildlife center where I got to see some kiwis. That was actually really cool. They are bigger then I thought, and kind of crazy. The center also had some fake glacier statues that I went on and took pictures. Since I didn’t make it to the glacier, I thought I would pretend and envision what it would of been like on the glacier. Another time. I met up with one of the girls from Hokitika, and we waited for the second girl to arrive. We decided to hit up a happy hour and then shared a bottle of sparkling wine. Turns out one of the girls was going to be on my bus to Wanaka the next day. She had been living there for almost 6 months or something, so she gave me all sorts of tips and things to do. I was looking forward to it. Anything besides the cold, wet and windy weather I feel like I had been experiencing ever since I arrived on the South Island (with a few exceptions). I had made the bus ride up the Hasst Pass once already. I was doing the exact same route. It was still beautiful.
Adventures and Life with Keelie 