You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me

After we left Queensland we hopped on an InnerCity bus and made our way to the tiny town of Franz Josef. This was a very sleepy town that had no traffic lights. Just by looking at it you could never tell that such a wonder as the Franz Josef glacier was only a few minutes away. On the first day there we decided to head to the hot pools to relax. We figured that these were natural pools or springs, but got there just to find out that they were just chlorinated cement pools at hot temperatures that had plants around them. Suzanne and I decided that we were not the “hot pool” type of people, in that we could only sit still in hot water for so long. We got to bed early that night in preparation for our full day glacier climb the next day. The next day we hiked for quite awhile to the bottom of the Franz Josef Glacier. It was so strange to be standing there in shorts and 75-degree weather staring at a massive block of ice glistening in the sun. We spent the whole day squeezing through crevices and making our way through ice caves on miles of the most beautiful blue ice I have ever seen. If you needed a drink you could just take a drink from one of the running streams or drippings from the crevice walls. We were wearing these metal spiked shoes that made me quite nervous and with my clumsiness I managed to rip my pants in three different directions with them, but never actually got broke skin thank goodness. Climbing the glacier was one of the most unique and beautiful experiences I have ever done. That evening we decided that we were going to try and make a trip to Lake Matheson. It was known for the perfect mirror images that are reflected on it. The easiest was for us to get to the lake was by renting a car. I was very nervous about driving on the other side of the road, but this was a small town and there wasn’t hardly any traffic so how bad could it really be. Well we got the last car available at the rental place, and we sat down, buckled up and I went to put it in gear when I realized that there was a third pedal, it was standard. So I have only driven a manual car once in my life before this, it was a parking lot, and I absolutely did not feel like an adequate stick shift driver when I was finished. So we decided that maybe I could just figure it out and we could make it around the corner and then it wouldn’t matter if I killed it. Well that would involve us having to get it going, which didn’t seem to be happening. We decided we had to go back in and tell the guy that this wasn’t going to work. However, the guy had another idea. He asked if we wanted him to refresh us on how to drive it. I thought maybe that would work and headed back out to the car. Well one thing led to another and we ended up going on a 2 mile driving lesson. By the end of it I felt okay, but by no means good about driving this tiny manual car. So we set off two girls and one manual car on the left side of the road. I wish I could say that everything went smoothly. But to sum up the evening, we got stuck in three parking lots, stalled the car over 200 times, 5 people stopped to ask us if we were okay, and I screamed I’m never going to be able to start this car again at least 4 times. It was quite an eventful evening, but in the end we had cheese and crackers and watched the sun go down over the mirror image on Lake Matheson, went to a beautiful beach where sheep were roaming the roads freely like deer, and made it back to Franz Josef in one piece. The next day we headed off to Christchurch on the gorgeous Franz Alpine train. We passed the beautiful landscape of the New Zealand coast. We then spent one day in Christchurch before we flew off to Australia. On that day we ate one fantastic meal, the first true good meal since leaving Auckland, toured the local fudge shop, had a guided tour through the museum, and went to a very interesting interactive aboriginal show and Hangi dinner. Overall our New Zealand trip was incredibly successful and I had such a sense of satisfaction that we had planned a trip traveling on our own in a foreign country and come out one with everything going smoothly and two without killing each other during the journey. People say that it is a true test of a friendship/relationship to travel together and I am happy to say that Suzanne and I survived with flying colors. I couldn’t of done any of this without her and I am so grateful that she has become my true traveling buddy!