When it rains, it pours

Last I left off, I was headed to Queenstown. Queenstown was very pretty and indeed the adrenalin junkie mecca it was advertised to be. It was also the jumping off point for my trip to Doubtful Sound in the Fiorland. To get to Doubtful Sound we took a bus to Manapouri, a boat across the gorgeous Lake Manapouri followed by a bus through the green and lush temperate rainforest of Fiordland National Park where we boarded the Fiordland Navigator, our overnight boat. The trip to the boat was awesome and just a little appetizer for our trip through Doubtful Sound, which was absolutely stunning. The boat took us the length of the sound to the Tasman Sea by sunset and then ducked into a sheltered arm off the sound to put down the anchor for the night. We had a clear night sky which made for great stargazing. The next day we did the trip in reverse and I was back in Queenstown by nightfall.

Fiordland




To get a taste of the adrenalin pumping activities for which Queenstown is known I considered the luge down the mountain but instead went wild and took a boat across the lake bordering Queenstown for a tour of a working sheep station. Ok, so maybe feeding cute woolly sheep isn't exactly fear inducing, but it was a lot of fun learning about the sheep and wool industry in New Zealand. After Queenstown, I spent a nice day on the bus traveling over mountains, through rainforest and along the west coast to get to Franz Josef. I signed up for a guided hike on the Franz Josef glacier and they equipped me with rain gear and crampons. Although it was raining (well pouring really) we were off on our approach hike through the rainforest and the river basin below the glacier. It was a veritable rainforest obstacle course complete with river crossings and steep muddy sections with rope tied to trees for support. Unfortunately the rain turned from merely pouring to absolutely torrential and we reached a river our guide determined had risen too high to cross and get back over safely after hiking the glacier. So, we turned around :(. Somewhere along the way up my pants had sprung a leak and I was learning to embrace being sopping wet. My boots held up well until we crossed a river that had risen quickly from ankle deep on the way in to above my knees on the way out. It turns out that the west coast of New Zealand gets rain about as many days as Colorado gets sunshine, which makes it so green and beautiful and a true rainforest. Because of the torrential rain spectacular waterfalls were roaring down from every side and would have made for great photos had I been willing to unearth my camera from its cozy ziplocked home deep within my backpack. Sorry, no glacier hike photos. After drying out a bit I ended up leaving Franz Josef a day early on the spur of the moment when Franz Josef lost power and I started having concerns about the roads to Greymouth becoming impassable due to river flooding caused by the continuing rain. So, onto Greymouth.

Just before the rain started in Franz Josef


Next up...the Tranzalpine Train.