Spring Break Cont.

Well, that night after skydiving was perhaps the coldest of the trip. The three of us decided that this would be a night for all of us to cram into the van, though it was still quite cold.
Morning arrived and we fell out of Alice, threw on some clothes and made our way to Franz Josef Glacier Guides for our day hike on the glacier (pronounced glassier here). We were given jackets, mittens, boots, and crampons. I thought we'd be given pants, but apparently they only do that in cooler, wet weather, so I was in thin spandex for the trip. Oops. This turned out to be a problem going through our first ice tunnel...more on that in a bit.
We were bussed to the trail head and made our way to the rock field below the glacier. There, we split into groups and chose the middle group so we could take everything in at a leisurely pace and enjoy. When we reached the base of the glacier, our group was split in half again and we donned our crampons and met our guide, Dan, who was pretty cool. He's what some people call a "Half-Pac," which is half pacific islander (Maori) and half Irish (or any nationality from the U.K.). My Maori friend said that it's not considered a derogatory term, although I'm interested to hear multiple opinions on it.
Anyway, Dan led us up a steep ice staircase onto the glacier where we spent the day tracking down blue ice and slipping and sliding our way around. The blue ice, which you can see in some of my pictures is pretty cool. We learned that it's caused by the lack of oxygen in the ice due to the pressure of the glacier, and therefore blue is the only color of the spectrum that is can reach this point in the ice? Something like that.
When we came to our first cave, we had to crawl on our hands and knees through a very narrow hole. Probably reason number one not to wear spandex on the glacier, although some were in shorts and got their knees cut up pretty badly by the jagged ice. The only problem I came across was not being careful with my crampons. I nicked myself pretty well on my calf and there's still a huge bruise and I the cut may or may not scar...oh well, add it to the collection.
After a nice long day on the glacier- we got the only two days of nice weather for doing our outdoor activities at the glaciers!- we drove on toward Wanaka with the oil light on the entire way. That was about 280 km maybe 170 miles? I felt as though I could hear the engine grinding, but Karlee and Tyler said that that happens all the time in their own cars at home and it usually goes off. Well, same, but we were on a road trip all over the South Island and I did NOT want to break down so I said that I didn't want to drive any further the next day unless we got oil somehow first.
That night we camped on the shores of Lake Wanaka. It was crazy windy and the tent spikes wouldn't go down into the ground because of the rocky shoreline. After about an hour of trying to keep the tent in place and having it fall on her numerous times, Karlee came back to the van and told me "It's not working." So we threw the tent into the front seat and all crammed into the van that night. It was kinda funny to see how she'd been sleeping in the tent. The spikes had come out of the front of the tent and it was collapsed in on her. Poor girl.
In Wanaka, I decided to buy a bottle of oil and top up the oil tank. I owe a HUGE thanks to Aly, because she'd taught me how to do this in VT when the oil light was on there. Unfortunately it hadn't worked then, but I found the oil tank, poured the oil in and the light went off! Thank goodness. The car also seemed to run a lot smoother afterward, which Karlee noted as well. I'm really glad I figured out how to do that at that point.
On to Queenstown, Round Two. We arrived at the Happy Hippo Lodge again, puttered around town, signed up for a Milford Sound cruise the next day, and an Easter pub crawl that night, and drove to one of the areas renowned wineries for a tasting. The guy giving us the tasting obviously didn't know what he was talking about and just kept telling everyone that certain wines tasted like gummy bears and pear. Really? Anyway, Karlee, Tyler and I agreed that a one certain dry Reisling was the favorite and moved on back to town for a slice of pizza.
Insert pub crawl and the ensuing Easter egg hunt at midnight.
The next morning we got up at about 6:45 and were on a bus by 7:45 on our way to Milford Sound in the beautiful Fiordland region of the South Island. I forget exactly how many "sounds" there are, but apparently they were all misnamed because they are fiords and I can tell you the difference between a sound and a fiord. A fiord is carved out of the land by a glacier moving out to sea. A sound originates by a river flowing out to sea. There is no liquid water source that creates a fiord.
Milford Sound is a 4 hr, roundabout drive from Queenstown and there is no direct access to it besides one road that must circumvent an impassable region of the Alps, but the drive is well worth it. Fiordland is an incredible display of wild, rugged terrain, the result of thousands of years of crushing and grinding tectonic plates far below. One can easily see exactly where and how the land was pushed up in a sort of pattern. It's just breathtaking nature at its finest.
Our Sound cruise on the other hand featured low-lying clouds and some rain. We had a good time and at the very end of the tour the sun revealed a tiny bit of the snow capped peaks and glacier surrounding the area. Then, a long drive back to Queenstown, after which we continued on toward Dunedin.
We arrived in the university town of Dunedin midday the next day and visited the Cadbury Factory there. YUM! An enjoyable experience except for our wiseguy tour guide who made it his job to make everyone feel bad about their limited chocolate knowledge. No matter. We drove out to the Otago peninsula that night and saw gigantic sea lions, and wild yellow-eyed penguins. It was pretty neat, I have to say. We watched one come in from sea, waddle up the beach and back into the dunes, where humans were not permitted to trespass. That was a pretty surreal experience to see such a rare creature in its natural habitat.
The next day, we hiked out on the peninsula again through sheep pastures to see Lover's Leap and the Chasm, two points where the land has basically dropped into the sea. Long way down. We actually weren't paying attention to the trail markers and followed a side trail that ran just along the drop off point for Lover's Leap and I was following Karlee and Tyler and looking down so I didn't realize where exactly I was standing until I hear waves crashing below. Yikes. That would've been the ultimate free fall of the trip I suppose...
On our way out of Dunedin, toward Christchurch, Tyler wanted to stop off at the world's steepest residential street. Steep.
Then we visited Maori rock paintings and these things called the Elephant Rocks which were used as a setting in the first Narnia film. I think it was the part where the 'bad guys' are having a pow wow one night and they've captured Azlan. Can't be sure. I need to watch the movie again.
At dusk, we went to see blue penguins returning from sea for the day, which was one of the coolest parts of the trip. I wasn't too keen on spending $20 NZD to watch a bunch of penguins walk across about 60 ft. of gravel, but I ended up learning a lot and watching them waddle in a huge bunch together was pretty cool. We also got to see some that had come home from sea another way, outside of the reserve where we saw the rest.
On to Christchurch! Karlee and I sat in the front seat, Karlee driving, for this leg of the journey. We got to the area outside Christchurch and needed to find a place to pull the camper over and stay for the night, so we figured we'd go out on the peninsula outside the city. Well, after about an hour of winding around neighborhoods, we turned on the navigation system and found out we weren't even on the peninsula yet, but it was a pretty funny tour of a really nice area of town! Finally we pulled over in a parking lot at a trail head next to some very noisy cows.
Well the time came to make our way to the airport. We parted ways with Alice, and cleaned her out! Yuck. Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare this time around, which was comforting. Flew back sans Karlee and Tyler because I unknowingly booked the last seat on my flight but they found an itinerary that left 1/2 hr before me and arrived in Auckland about 1/2 behind me. Aaaaand we made it back to Huia for a comfortable nights rest before waking at 7 the next morning to go on a Loyola trip! And I need to include a whole update on that! More to come!