Day 5 Franz Josef Glacier

We managed to sleep in a bit this morning in hopes the cafe across the street would be open for breakfast. We didn't sleep long enough though, it wasn't open yet and no sign showing when it did. We continued south bound.

Heather took her first try at driving, of course Chad was scared and tried, but didn't, keep his mouth shut. The west side of the island offers some amazing views of crashing waves and rocky coast line. We stopped Irimahuewhero viewpoint for some quick photos and then carried on to Punakaiki and had bacon (Canadian bacon) and eggs for breakfast. It was interesting to note how dead of a town Charleston was compared to just 45 minutes south where it has been just like your typical summer in southern Utah. We then did the Truman walk down to the beach, and a quick look into Punakaiki cavern while we waited for the tide to come in to see the Pancake Rocks and blow holes.

Geologists still don't know exactly how the Pancake rocks were formed, many layers of ?limestone? And much more easily eroded material. With all the soft rock around, the ocean did a number on the coast line and created surge pools and "blow holes". The immense power of the ocean is best seen during high tide in a place like this, which we were lucky enough to be there for. It is quite hard to describe all that is going on, and equally difficult to capture on camera. Probably best described in person. We did capture a few videos though.

We carried on to Greymouth where Siri knew where she was going, but had great difficulty getting us there (the grocery store) because she couldn't decide which road we were actually on. We got some groceries and drove south some more to the next roadside table and made a quick lunch. Further south we made another pitstop in Hokitika which apparently has the best Jade in NZ. We figured that it was just the typical tour bus stop for all the tourists to get their souvenirs so we got a couple. South bound again we suddenly came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Apparently a large tree had fallen across the road so traffic was backed up for kilometers in either direction. The black signs you see along the road here saying "NZ roads are different, plan for more time" rings true again, even though these roads were straight enough you could get up to the speed limit most of the time.

After our 30 minute delay we finally made it to Franz Josef with plenty of time to spare for our glacier hot pool experience. (Just chlorinated hot tubs the size of normal pools). After some time there and a refreshing shower we made our way a couple minutes up the road to the Rainforest Retreat Holiday Park. We got some laundry done and "made" some dinner while trying to plan what to do with our 4.5 open days coming up. We are trying to figure out how all the people here come and cook such elaborate looking dinners while we mainly open up packets of things to warm up.Read more