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Day 59: I went on a glacier hike on the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand. It was an early start and a long day. We spent something like 6 hours on the ice and it was still a considerable amount of time hiking to the glacier itself. The only equipment unique to the glacier hike were the crampons. They are basically spikes that attach to your boots. We got ice axes / picks later in the hike but they weren’t necessary. If you look at the photos you will see a picture of a small hole / tunnel in the ice. It was something like 15-20 feet long and uphill with loads of freezing water flowing through it. It was optional torture to climb though this hole, but of course when in Rome. I ended up soaking the entirety of the left-hand side of my body in near freezing water since there was no other way for me to fit through other than laying flat on my side in rushing water and digging my heels in the ice. After the hike was over, a group of us from the bus chipped in and made a pasta dinner.

Day 60: Today we headed to Lake Wanaka. The weather was shit most of the day, but improved a bit when we arrived at our destination. I walked around part of the lake, then hiked to the top of Mount Iron to get a great 360 view of Wanaka and the surrounding mountains and valleys. Then we all chipped in on dinner again and Chantal and Rob, two friends from the bus, made supreme nachos for 16 of us. They were ridiculously good and massive portions with loads of toppings. And for anyone that has cooked in a hostel kitchen before, they can respect the amazing feat of cooking for 16 people in a packed (and tiny) kitchen.

Day 61: We took off towards Queenstown in the morning. Before going into Queenstown we stopped at a bungie place and watched a few fellow bus-mates take the dive. It looks like a damn good time, but this jump was only 43 meters and the word on the street is the tallest bungie is in Hong Kong, 220 something meters. I think I’ll wait for that. The evening consisted of a fun night out with all the people from the bus, kind of a final night out since quite a few people are splitting up from here.

Day 62: After sleeping in a bit, the first time for quite a few days, I hiked up to a peak overlooking Queenstown. This place is seriously beautiful. I’m going to have a hard time leaving. There is a gondola you can take instead of hiking, but it’s 20 bucks so f that. At the top they had a small complex with a restaurant, cafe, gift shop and a luge course which looked basically like a downhill go cart track. I grabbed a bite to eat and took a series of nice photos which I turned into a panoramic, as you can see above.

So two months on the road so far. Part of it has felt like an eternity, the other part seems like it has just flown by. I was kind of over budget in Australia and Singapore, but I’m seriously over budget here. Looks like it may be working visa time soon. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading my posts and checking out the photos so far. I look forward to writing about new adventures and capturing new photos.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Day in day out. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.