Who said work?

Lake Hawea









Rugged West Coast shoreline












Glacier hike!












Ice steps










Franz Joseph glacier













Punakaiki pancake rocks









Fancy dress party in Barrytown












Abel Tasman National Park

Sorry for the long delay, guys. I've been on the move. A girl is entitled to changing her mind, right? Good, because that's just what I've done. My first few days in Nelson I tried to focus on writing a couple of generic cover letters, modifying my resume, and searching a few online job sites. In the end, I decided I would continue travelling instead of looking for work here. Maybe Nelson wasn't the right place for me or maybe I'm just not ready to work yet. Whatever the reason, the idea of working and settling there didn't sit well with me. And I have to say, it's nice to have the freedom to be able to change my mind like that! Nonetheless, Nelson is a nice town. The Saturday morning market was one of the best I've been to - tons of fresh produce, local crafts and artwork, clothing, food stalls, a bit of everything really. I saw some wall art I really liked, but hesitated to purchase it because my options are to either carry it around with me as I travel (and risk damaging it) or to pay to ship it home. They were "seed mosaics". A pretty dragonfly, for instance, was recreated by thousands of seeds glued underneath a pane of glass in a frame. Some of the seeds were dyed by coffee to darken them. And some of the designs had bits of paua shell in them as well. They were so unique. I took the artist's business card just in case...I stayed in a fantastic hostel called The Bug. Named after the car. They had VW Bug salt and pepper shakers, VW Bug pictures on the walls, they even came to pick me up in an old VW Bug! There was fresh baked bread in the kitchen each morning, free internet, and a whole bunch of bikes we could borrow to get into and around the town each day. My stay coincided with their third anniversary and they hosted a BBQ one evening: free eats! The bikes came in handy too. I explored a bit of the city centre, including a stop for...another ice cream (a dairy intolerance is no match for the occasional cool delight! Jo - you must be here in spirit!); went swimming at a nearby beach complete with snow covered mountains visible in the distance (surreal is such a good work for New Zealand); and hiked to the Centre of New Zealand. I've now been to the northernmost accessible tip and the center of the country. I wonder how long it will be until I arrive at the southern end.... Well, I'm on my way. I left Nelson on Thursday (Dec11), jumping back onto a Stray bus. We drove to a town called Marahau and spent two nights at Old MacDonalds Farm - I kid you not - a spot located at the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. During our stay, I went kayaking along part of the park's shore line and hiked in a small part of the coast trail (as far as Tinline Bay). Saturday morning, filing back onto the bus, we discovered that our driver, Thumper, had decorated the bus for Christmas! Surrounded by garland and swinging ornaments, we began our descent down the West Coast of the South Island. The West Coast is also known as Westland - or Wetland. It gets a lot of rain...which makes its landscape what it is: rainforests and rugged beaches. Among the various stops along the way, we walked the Truman Track, which is a cool, subtropical forest trail that leads down to a beach with huge overhangs of sandstone cliffs, almost like partial caves, as well as a trail in Paparoa National Park located in Punakaiki, famous for it's pancake rocks and blowholes. Our last activity before arriving at our night stop was a beach walk to hunt for greenstone. Unfortunately, no one was lucky enough to find any! We stayed the night in Barrytown, population 40, at a supposed historic hotel by the name of All Nations. An incredibly small town, not much happening, your stay is basically what you make it to be. So...we ended up having a "fancy dress" party in the hotel's pub. "Fancy dress" in New Zealand doesn't mean formal clothing - it means costumes! Our driver chose the theme: dress up as what you wanted to be when you were a child. Well, I wanted to be many things over the course of my childhood but, surprisingly, they had costume accessories for the first thing that popped into mind: a construction worker, just like Dad. It was a fun evening, even more so since there was a jukebox, i.e. I got to dance. The next morning we set out for Franz Joseph, the town located at the base of the Franz Joseph Glacier. When we checked into the Rainforest Retreat, I was happy to hear that they had a free spa pool. Easing into that hot pool after my 8 hour glacier experience was sublime! Yes, 8 hours. The glacier gets rain about 265 days a year. The slogan of the Retreat's bar, aptly named Monsoon Bar, is "it rains...we pour." It rains two out of every three days on average. Between that knowledge, and recalling the impact the 6-hour Tongariro Crossing had on my knees, I seriously debated doing only the half day guided glacier walk, but opted in the end for the full day. Because we had to book a day ahead, we didn't find out the day's forecast until the morning we showed up for the walk: heavy rain and thunderstorms! I started to seriously doubt my decision, anxious about how my knees would handle the trek, worried about being stuck out in that kind of weather for a full day... We got geared up in the standard equipment (Goretex rain jackets, waterproof pants, wool socks and sturdy boots, wool hats and mitts in case we needed them, and crampons - metal spikes we attached to the boots "for superior glacier grip") and hoped for the best. Fortunately, once up on the glacier, trailing behind our pick-axe wielding guide, although it did rain off and on, the forecast didn't prove to be true. Thank Goodness! And my thigh muscles seemed to take most of the brunt of use this time. Maybe the biking in Nelson strengthened my thighs just enough to take the pressure off my knee joints. There was a bit of psychological warfare going on inside my head at times. Although I knew I was supposed to trust the crampons to grip the ice, it was sometimes difficult to convince my brain that I wouldn't slip when walking up, down, or across the many steep slopes made entirely of ice. It was an incredibly challenging hike, but also incredibly fascinating. Ice surrounded us as we hiked deep into the glacier. We passed through narrow crevices where walls of ice rose way above our heads on both sides. We crawled through ice tunnels. We traversed icy steps hacked into the steep slants of the icy terrain, some requiring the added support of a rope to climb or descend. The sound of trickling water was a constant backdrop as water melted off the glacier. The occasional kea (a green, parrot-like bird native to NZ) landed nearby monitoring our progress. Our 15 minute lunch break supplied a fresh supply of water as clear, cold glacier water poured down the side of a wall of ice. Such a unique, beautiful landscape! I'm glad I did the full day - not just because it meant more ice time, taking us further to see more of the icy scenery, but also for the immense satisfaction of completing such a challenge!But the bus never stays in one place for long so the following day we continued our journey down the West Coast. We passed Fox Glacier and stopped to see Lake Matheson - a beautiful lake that supposedly mirrors the reflections of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. I've been lucking out with weather since arriving but, unfortunately, the views here were invisible thanks to heavy mist and cloud. We crossed Haast Pass, stopped for some photos at the 28-meter high Thunder Creek Falls, and pulled in mid-afternoon at our next night stop in Makarora, at the Makarora Wilderness Resort. This remote place is almost literally snuggled in between mountain ranges of the Mount Aspiring National Park. The mist, cloud and rain continued throughout the evening so our ability to see the surrounding landscape was severely reduced. Between rain showers, I went for a short walk down a nature trail. Rabbits (or hares), startled by my presence, bounded for cover; little rock wrens and other birds fluttered back and forth in front of me; numerous, furry vines of moss swayed off the ancient, solid trees. After we finished our self-catered dinners, we headed down to the Resort's bar. We were the only ones there, which made it somewhat easier to ball up enough courage later on to...sing karaoke! Yes. I sang karaoke. 3 times! We all got in on the act. What were the songs I chose? I think I surprised my bus mates with my first selection - Gangsta's Paradise. Next was Stand by Me, and finally, I sang Brown Eyed Girl with one of the guys (Richard). I didn't have my camera on me, but a couple of the girls said they would email me the video clips they took. It ended up being a lot of fun. The next morning greeted us with clear, sunny skies and crisp, fresh air. With the mist and clouds finally gone we were able to see just how stunning the scenery really was. What a beautiful spot! And as we continued our journey on the bus, the amazing scenery also continued. What a breathtaking stretch of road it is through the Mount Aspiring National Park. (Jo, I remember this being one of your recommended spots!) We passed Lake Wanaka, stopped for photos at Lake Hawea, and made a brief stop at Puzzling World (illusions, puzzles, a maze) before arriving in Wanaka - which is where I jumped off again. Which, alas, meant saying goodbye to yet another group of new friends. So here I am, at the Purple Cow Backpackers hostel in Wanaka. It seems like a great hostel and a great town, which is fortunate since I'll be here for three nights before heading to Queenstown for Christmas. I have a view of Lake Wanaka and the mountain ranges behind it from where I'm staying. The town reminds me a little bit of Banff - a small, yet popular, mountainside resort town. Let's see what I can get up to over the next couple of days...