7/14 Glaciers
- Franz Joseph is a little town catered mainly to the glacier tourists.
- Boys went to a 40-minute glacier helicopter ride that includes a landing on top of the glacier. Ian was dazzled by the helicopter as well as the magnificent glaciers.
- After a picnic lunch, we went to a couple of walks.
- Glacier Valley Walk - went through a native forest, then another ~30minutes on the Waiho riverbed that's full of interesting rocks, we finally came to facing the glacier terminal.
- Peter's Pool on the Douglas Walk for a fantastic reflective view up the glacier valley.
- Another easy day soaking up the sun and enjoy the majestic snow capped mountains.
7/15 Good bye west coast
- Today we continued on SH6 toward Wanaka. When passing Fox Glacier area, we took a walk around Matheson Lake to take in some breathtaking views of the glacier and surround mountains. The walk through the ancient native forest that was formed 14,000 years ago was one of the memorable in NZ.
- After passing Parianga River, we stopped by a salmon farm/cafe. Boys fed some salmon while we stock up on some smoke salmon.
- We bid farewell to the wild west coast at Hasst and started the famous "Hasst Pass" where waterfalls and crashing rivers are around every corner. We picked a couple of easy and rewarding walks:
- Thunder Creek Fall -
- The Blue Pools - the Makaroroa and Blue rivers meet where the water is glacier-fed and appears deep blue.
- After Makarora, the gateway to Mt. Aspiring National Park, we started skirting Lake Wanaka, then Lake Hawett before arriving into the alpine town of Wanaka.
7/16 Trouble at Treble cone
The day started with surprisingly good weather as the forecast predicated snow and rain shower. Boys were all excited finally be able to ski in NZ. They decided to ski at the Treble Cone near Mt. Aspiring National Park while I settled for some walks around Lake Wanaka. As I was strolling Wanaka, soaking in the bright sun, and enjoying the alpine scenery, I got the despairing news that Ian has broken his leg during skiing.The rest of of the day was filled with dr's visit and figuring out our plans.... :-(
7/17 Continuing on to Central Otago
- While LG played golf on Wanaka Golf Club, I took the boys to the Puzzling World. Good thing they had a wheelchair for me to borrow to push Ian around. Though Ian was in a lot of pain, his spirit was still pretty high for the interesting Illusion Rooms. We then had picnic by the lake, and Ethan enjoyed climbing on the playground until daddy called for pick up at the golf course.
- We took the scenic Crown Range Route toward Queenstown. The route is the highest sealed road in NZ, passes at 1120m after Cardrona ski field. The views from the top are world class, but the zigzagging road coming down the mountain was also challenging. Ian complained car sick and leg pain from countless turns and bumps, so we stopped at Amisfield Winery for some tasting.
- Before dusk we arrived at Queenstown which nestles under spectacular mountain ranges and lies on the shore of Lake Wakatipu.