Don't Have a Vegemite Sandwich

All is well but this post is late because I couldn't keep my eyes open after a long hike followed by a heavy Italian dinner. Before we left Te Anau I noticed some Vegemite in the refrigerator at our cottage and decided to have a taste. Quadruple Yuck! Vegemite taste like rotten fish paste mixed with motor oil! It is truly disgusting, no I've never tasted rotten fish paste and motor oil but I imagine it would taste just like Vegemite. We said good bye to the Murphy's and the farm around 10:00 and began our drive West. I drove for the first two hours and felt amazingly comfortable behind the right side wheel. The drive west was pretty easy but boring and the scenery looks very much like the American west with rolling hills and farmland. John drove for the last 3 hours because he was pretty bored. Once we checked into our motor inn like motel in Tekapo we decided to get some exercise after being couped up in the car all day. We hiked to the summit of a mountain over looking Lake Tekapo. The hike was steeper and more difficult than I imagined and 2/3 of the the way up my legs felt like cement blocks. We reached the summit and the view of the turquoise colored lake was magnificent even on a cloudy day. We trekked back down in search of dinner around 6:30. Tekapo is believed to have the cleanest air in the world and the turquoise lake is another big draw to the area so the town attracts loads of hikers and campers and there's a youth hostel just down the road so lots of young people. We decided on Pepe's Italian restaurant. For some reason the restaurant has a ski theme with poster and ski memorabilia decorating the walls. The place was packed so the waitress asked if we would be okay sharing a table with other guests. We joined Anne and Barie for a very enjoyable dinner. Barie and Anne and sisters in-law from the US. Anne is a librarian from Massachusetts and Barie makes custom sails for sailboats on Maryland's eastern shore and she sails. They are staying at the youth hostel despite being in their 60s and that's how they've managed to see so much of NZ on a budget, they seem to be having a blast and talked about their most interesting night when they stayed in a jail converted to a hostel in Christchurch!

Today is our final day in New Zealand. We will leave Tekapo and drive to Christchurch where we plan to visit the Botanical Gardens and have dinner before our 7:00 PM flight to Auckland. From Auckland we will fly to Los Angeles (12 hours). We are departing NZ at 7:00 PM Thursday night and arriving into Minneapolis at 11:00 PM Thursday night. We're on Air New Zealand until LAX to MSP when we switch to Delta/Northwest.

Fiordland Explored

Today was spectacular! We drove about 2 hours to Milford Sound for a cruise of the sound and the fiords. I've never been on any type of cruise ship so this alone was a treat. We booked the smaller of the two boats because our cruise boat offered an on board naturalist. We probably had 25 people on our ship and the boat seemed very large and spacious for so few people. I don't even know how to begin to tell you how amazing the cruise was and how much we learned in a little over two hours. A good starting point I suppose is with a definition of a sound and a fiord but I don't want to bore you if you already know and I don't feel much feel like writing a lecture, so let's just say the area is the arm of an ocean with mountains all around so it looks sort of like lakes in the ocean.http://www.milford-sound.co.nz/ The scenery is really out of this world absolutely breathtaking. A couple of things we learned. New Zealand has way too many possums and is trying all sort of things to kill them off. We were told if we hit a possum while driving to be sure to backup and run over it again! Possums were brought to NZ for their fur but have become a real nuisance in the last 100+ years since possum fur went out of fashion. There is only one colorful tree native to NZ it' s called the Rata tree and produces a bright red flower. There were no bees in NZ so the trees didn't need to be colorful to attract the bees for cross pollination. Moths pollinated and the only flowering trees had white flowers to be seen in the dark by moths before bees were introduced. Lobster is one of New Zealand's biggest exporting tons to Asia. The species of fern trees seen throughout the rain forest in NZ is over 100 million years old. We also saw a chasm today after we completed the cruise, another sight not to be missed in Fiordland. Well it's getting late and we have to get an early start tomorrow because the drive is over 6 hours. Good night

Fox Glacier

We had a wonderful breakfast with our hosts and the other guests at Tichelmann's this morning. Frances had an incredible spread of fresh plums, guava, roasted tomatoes, fresh baked bread, eggs, thick smokey bacon, cereal, etc. We met the other guests at breakfast. In addition to the couple from Nottingham mentioned previously there we two other couples. Roger and Janet from Cheshire, England and Julie and Ojon from San Francisco. Julie and Ojon work for Google and appeared to be in their late twenties. This was by far the fanciest and most high brow place we've stayed in NZ. Tichelmann's B&B offers top of the line accommodations with huge sun -filled rooms, comfy beds, high quality lines, thick towels, lots of small and impressive touches. The house has been completely remodelled and updated but the remodel maintained the period of the original home. After breakfast we started our drive south toward Fox Glacier or as they say here glass-Y-ER. What makes Fox Glacier unique is the location in the middle of a rain forest. It is 1 or only 3 glaciers in the world located in a rain forest. The drive to the area took a little more than two hours. We had lunch in town and then hiked to the base of the glacier. We could see the ice but only groups on guided tours are allowed on the actual glacier. We see enough ice back home so seeing the base of the glacier and later getting a a view of it from behind Mt Cook was plenty. After the hike we drove to Lake Mathison where the the view of the glacier was reported to be very good but required about an hour long walk around the lake for the "view of views." The walk around the lake was great exercise but the view of views was nothing special; we actually got the best view of the mountains and glacier as we drove away from Lake Mathison. Then we were on our way to Wanaka. The drive to Wanaka took over 3 hours but the scenery was great and we made several quick stops to enjoy the mountains. We arrived into Wanaka around 9:00 PM and got checked into Te Wanaka Lodge and headed into town for a late and light dinner. When we booked a night at Te Wanaka they were full but offered us one of their cottages instead. The cottage turned out to be a 3 BR 2 B home with a fully stocked kitchen, laundry, garage,etc. The cottage would be a great option for a family staying in the area for a few days but was far too much for two people spending just one night. Wanaka is a ski resort town but the main attraction in the summer is Lake Wanaka, a beautiful bluer than blue glacier lake. The town looks new and upscale offering trendy restaurants, shops,bars and loads of healthy looking blond people.

Lake Wanaka

All is well but we didn't have an internet connection last night and only limited service at the moment. We're in Wanaka NZ a beautiful town located in the mountains with popular Mt. Cook for winter sports and Lake Wanaka in the summer months. The Lake is lovely and we're getting ready to take a nice long walk around it. I will write more about yesterday later. I had a very nice chat with my grandpa earlier today and another with my mom. Bye for now.