Franz Josef Glacier & The West Coast (new edit by Sarah)

After a short drive from Fox Glacier (the same day as in the previous post) we arrived in Franz Josef and quickly found the holiday park that we'd spend the next two nights. We each had a much needed shower and then made our way into town, I say town but it's just a collection of businesses along the 2 lane highway. After a quick lap of town we found ourselves in a Speights pub, the same Speights that we were at the brewpub in Dunedin not long ago. I hunkered down to eat some tasty pork ribs while Sarah nibbled on my chips and any stray piece of meat she could get her hands on. After dinner, knowing that it was now happy hour in the bar at our campsite we headed over there for another pint. We did so with a huge group of American travellers in there as well and got ourselves adjusted to hearing that accent again. We played cards to pass the time and then headed back to our van for the evening.

The next day having absolutely nothing planned to do we took things very leisurely. Caught up on some clothes washing, reading, napping for me and for Sarah tanning. Might I add that I've never seen her legs as brown as they are. In the afternoon we again walked through town picking up some provisions in the grocery store and then stopped to watch the helicopters at the helipad. The business that they do here is crazy with a different chopper landing every 10-20 minutes and more people loaded on for flights around the glaciers and Mt Cook. Hughes 500's, Bell 206 Jet Rangers, AS 350 Squirrels all sorts of choppers for me to drool over. Sarah pulling me away we were back to the van for dinner "in" though we sat out in the nice evening sun.

The day we decide to do something of course is the day it's overcast. This is what I was thinking when getting out of bed though it didn't stop us much at all and burned off by midday. We headed only a few k up the road to the Franz Josef Glacier parking lot. From there we hiked about 50 minutes to about 500 yards from the glaciers terminus. Though very dirty and broken up, as most glaciers look in the summer, it was cool to see the blue ice through the cracks and to see the enormity of it snaking up the mountain. Pictures taken we headed back to the van and had some breakfast before heading down the road. Today would mostly consist of driving through light rain and overcast skies which we met not too far north of Franz Josef. It was not that different to driving along small coastal roads through small coastal towns back home in Washington. Especially with the rain it made me think of home. We crossed lots of one lane bridges, some that were one lane and shared that one lane with trains? We made a stop in Greymouth for fuel and food as it was 1.70NZD/L in there and 1.95NZD/L in Franz Josef. We also stopped for a bit mre shopping than we'd gotten the previous day, more of a big shop than stopping for provisions. With nothing really grabbing our attention we decided to cut inland to a little town we saw on the map.
So we headed through more windy roads with lovely secenery (similar to Wales or Scotland) until we reached Reefton. When we got there we wondered if the mapmaker was having a little joke with the size of his dots cause what looked like a town of size was not really anything. This is a one horse town, one small road through the middle with a number of shops, bars and cafes scattering the street. This was an old mining town and gold can be found here if you have the patience to pan for it. We were going to stay near town so we could do some walks the next day but decided to push on a little further instead. I was going to put a Wikipedia info link for you on Reefton but I have found they have their own website ! So here you go http://www.reefton.co.nz/
So further East we pressed until there was no more radio reception and then found a DOC (Dept Of Conservation) campground to turn in at just past Springs Junction. And it had toilet facilities straight out of some horror film so I made Ryan come with me when the call of nature came knocking (thats love for you!)
That night we cooked up some grub and stayed in the camper as it had started to rain and we were still in sandfly country and I wasn't going to get bitten any more. We enjoyed or meal and played some cards again that evening.