Our chariot.


The ride. Our pilot diverted somewhat from his prescribed flight path.


Looking up.


Ice streams.


Ice caves.






Our guide. The ice formation behind him is much bigger than it looks.




See?

Tight squeeze.




Death below.




Cave face.


Crawling through.


Hidey hole.


The group.




Next: Queenstown and the Milford Sound

The road from Nelson to Fox Village was mostly unremarkable, except for the typically stunning New Zealand scenery. Drove over a river that was apparently used during the filming of the Lord of the Rings (throw a rock anywhere in New Zealand and it will hit something filmed in Lord of the Rings).

One stop was the Pancake Rocks. They're nice to look at, and interesting to ponder (apparently no one really knows how they were formed), but it's hard to create a compelling photograph of them. At least within the 10 meager minutes that we were allowed there before having to reboard the bus. At least it was for me.

Failure #1 (not even of the rocks, but of the walkway there):


Failure #2:


Failure #3:


Failure #4:


Failures #5-27 will remain unseen.

Here were some more interesting (non-pancake) rocks off the coast (photo taken from inside the bus).


And here's the moon over Mount Cook (also taken from the inside of the bus).


The first night in Fox Village, I was awoken by the sound of loud snoring at 4 in the morning. This gave me the perfect opportunity to go down to Lake Matheson to catch the daybreak.

This was just before it, on a shaky tripod.



This is after.



Mts. Cook and Tasman are visible in the background.

It was freezing that morning. Still, it was beautiful.











They raise deer as livestock, here.



Next: Fox Glacier

---
Note: This journal is several weeks behind. I'm now back in Australia, exploring the Atherton Tablelands and Daintree Rainforest in North Queensland. With no one in particular.

Went to the Abel Tasman National Park about two weeks ago (23/6/2007). Did sea kayaking for the first time, ever.

It rained at the start. Then these happened.



Our trusty guide.



Stopped in a bay for lunch. The view was nice.







Hiked for a bit after lunch. Another nice view.



Got back to sea after that. Then saw these.






Kayakers.



Departed from the kayaking group to spend the night in a freezing hut (more like a lodge, and better than spending the night outside somewhere).

Met another Chris.



He's from Vancouver. He tells me that they're having problems in the outside suburbs of the city, which intrude into animal habitats. Specifically, with cougars hunting people. We mostly talked about Christianity, though.

It was a long walk (22 km) from the hut back to Marahau, where the bus was to pick me up. It's a coastal track, though, so there's still nice scenery.





Walking across Torrent Bay at low tide.



Got to Torrent Bay hours earlier than expected (or so I thought), so we made a detour to something called Cleopatra's Pool.



It was pretty deep in the woods, and getting there required jumping/climbing over many, many rocks in a large creek, but it was worth it, I think.

Oh, and this looked interesting.



After a while, got to the actual sign marker for Torrent Bay, which informed me that it was a 3 hour walk back to Marahau. Unfortunately, I only had 2. So that was bad.

Now, I know that those signs usually overestimate slightly, but it was still unnerving. And even going as fast as possible (and most of the track was uphill, which was lots of fun), it took 2 hours and 15. But, I still managed to catch the bus.

Here's some stuff I saw close to the pickup point, when I was too tired to bother with my good camera. I think the little one did a pretty decent job.





Next time: Pancake Rocks and Lake Matheson