Will you believe it, the sky is blue, the sun is out. Mind you I don’t appreciate it on account of the fact that we have not received our early wake up call and the alarm hasn’t worked. We have five minutes to put our luggage outside the room for pick up, and half an hour to shower, dress and eat breakfast. I’m very grumpy, and beginning to wonder about this trip. So far the organisation has been less than efficient, and the bacon and eggs are almost cold. Should have stuck to cereal.
Not until we glimpse snow on the mountain tops in the distance do I start to cheer up. I love mountains, and yesterday’s heavy rain (falling as snow at high altitude) has assured a scenic journey over the next two days. We pick up the Trans-Alpine train at Darfield. I rug up (in the almost lost red coat) and brave the wind on the viewing platform to take pictures and video. A hot chocolate and big fluffy scone completes the experience.
 | ||
| Snowcapped view from Trans-alpine train. |
 |
| Yours Truly. |
Chris meets us at Arthur’s Pass and drives us to Hokitika, sparkling serene in the sun. You would never believe it had once boasted a 1400 seat opera house, forty one pubs and all the mayhem a gold rush brings in the mid 1800s. Now it is sedate, full of shops selling Jade, or Greenstone as it is sometimes called. We bought All Black stamps at the post office for postcards, had a delicious lunch at a nearby Deli.
 |
| My vegetable pita |
 |
| Kit's Blue Cheese pot pie |
Somewhere along the way, I lost my scab. Sounds horrible doesn’t it? I have a small skin cancer on the back of my hand I treated with black salve two weeks ago. It draws out the cancer (supposedly) and leaves you pristine once the dark scab has lifted off. I’ll believe it’s truly gone when I attend the Melonoma Clinic in Sydney in May. Meanwhile…somewhere in Hokitika my dark scab lurks.
The next stop is Harihan where an Australian pilot landed upside down in a swamp years ago, thereby ensuring his immortality. He survived. His biplane is housed in a small room there.
 | ||
| Hapless Aussie Pilot. |
At Franz Josef, we walk to see the glacier (not as far down as when I was here 15 years ago) and visit a talking toilet, one of those that welcomes you in in a male American voice, and flushes when you wash your hands or walk out.
 |
| There's a glacier somewhere! |
The highlight at Franz Josef Glacier is…cheap bananas!!! We have left behind bananas at $15.00 a kilo in Sydney, thanks to the Queensland floods. Here they’re $2. 29. The whole busload of passengers trips out one by one to buy the precious fruit.
 |
| Yes NZ has bananas! |
Our stop for the night is Heartland Hotel at Fox Glacier.
 |
| A beautiful sunset. |
No comments:
Post a Comment