We woke up this morning to calm winds and blue skies. After breakfast we headed back down to the beach where we watched the waves crashing in. Although the sea was still pretty rough, the scenery had changed completely from 24 hours ago. Visibility was great, and the mountains all had a fresh coating of bright white snow on them.
Snow Capped Southern Alps
We’ve finally got into the mindset that we don’t have to travel 8+ hours a day, todays trip is only about 120kms going down the coast to Franz Joseph. The visibility remained clear and we had a good view of snow capped mountains for most of the trip. About halfway down we pulled off onto a dead end road that took us down to a beach. The beach was full of smooth rounded stones which would be great for landscaping in the back yard, unfortunately even with an allowance of 64Kgs each, I don’t think we could bring enough back. Also on the beach were small pieces of what appeared to be jade, we collected some and will bring it back in the hope that we can try and polish it up.
Beach Stones
Back on the main road we past another sign that made Lyn sit up and take notice
Kiwi
Seems like the only way we are going to see some of these beasts is on road signs.
Again we were treated to great scenery
View From the Passenger Seat
We arrived in Franz Joseph in the early afternoon and checked into the motel. We then headed out to the areas main attraction, the glacier. It was billed as a simple 20 minute walk to the viewpoint, Lyn begs to differ. According to her simple walks do not go up steep hills and around hairpin bends.
Franz Joseph Glacier