So having had no sleep from a night of football I put my head down for
the coach trip to Wanaka, only really stopping at a fruit shop we'd
passed on our way into Queenstown.. We pulled into Wanaka on a cloudy
early afternoon and after making our way to the hostel made our way
into town to check out the surroundings and buy some more food. It
wasn't the most inspiring place, most shops were closed since it was a
Sunday, however our trip was brightened in meeting 'Crazy Carol' a
lady who for a decade has been adorning her hair with various plastic
and neon trinkets making up without doubt the coolest haircut we'd yet
seen.. She really wasn't that crazy, but a local celebrity without
doubt.This was the first YHA we'd stayed at and we were pretty
underwhelmed, most had been overpriced for their area and though this
one wasn't; for what we were presented with it still was.. We'd
stopped here to save visiting two glacier towns, and also with the aim
of visiting Stuart Loughbroughs Puzzling World.. It was a few
kilometres walk so we took the trip the next day and prepared for
whatever we'd find. You're greeted by the 'leaning clocktower of
Wanaka' with a backwards clock and other architectural quirks. We
entered and firstly went into the maze, a small labyrinth of wooden
panelling and staircases.. Your aim was to reach each of the four
corners - we gave up since the walk had worn our legs out somewhat,
and a family running around maniacally laughing was more fun than the
effort of succeeding ourselves. We moved inside to the Illusions Rooms
where we were treated to all sorts, from 3D photos to optical
illusions - an Ames room and an angled room, giving the illusion of
being much larger or smaller and being gravity defying respectively..
Overall it was a funny afternoon, maybe for the wrong reasons but it
was worth it just to know what was there. It suited Wanaka to a T, the
only other thing that could define here culturally was a mention of it
in Mission Impossible 3.. Well well.We'd arranged to travel up to
Franz Josef the next morning and we weren't that sad to be leaving,
there's probably a few nice walks around but we'd taken in enough of
this region for the time being.Our trip to Franz Josef was a bit
longer than the one to Wanaka, stopping off at a Salmon Farm on the
way which was maybe not as interesting as it'd sound, more or less
just a food and 'comfort' stop. We passed through the Haast Pass, even
crossing the plate-line responsible for the on going formation of the
mountain ranges before reaching Fox Glacier Township just down the
road from Franz Josef - it was clear we'd chosen the right place to
stay, the town was already 7km away from its glacier and there wasn't
much there for us to do besides.. We pulled up and were greeted with
an offer at our hostel for a third night for free which we gratefully
accepted!! Our first course of action was to send off some further
correspondence with the Immigration Service, this involved finding a
scanner somewhere - a far more difficult challenge than it might be
perceived. We had walked round half the town before we stumbled into
the Te Koha Art Gallery.. As it happened they had only recently opened
and just began to offer wood carving courses for a fair price, so
putting our other task to side we endeavoured to forge some emblems
for the two hours. Our guide was vastly experienced having learnt
himself when building a new Marae for his community. They came out
looking none too bad, the sandflies had taken a few bites out of us
but we could both have easily carried on for a while longer. We left
our work behind so that it could be oiled overnight and headed round
to the YHA to use their scanner before returning and sending off what
would hopefully be our final effort since our passports with accepted
Visitors Visa had finally been confirmed.The following day we set off
out toward the glacier. It was a fair walk to arrive at the car park
where the final walk toward the Terminal Face began. Following along
the rivers path the valley was already gargantuan, and when we left
the road and began to walk up the river bed this along with the size
of the glacier only became further pronounced. We finally arrived at
the end of the trail after around two hours walking from the town -
although the glacier was already an incredible site, it's blue ice
seeming almost unnatural, it was somewhat ruined by a large gravel
pile that had been built up infront of the face of it.. Well, you
could pay a local company to be guided up as far as this, or just
disregard the safety notices and continue up this temporary hill for a
better view.. No prizes for guessing that we headed up to the top of
the hill and were treated to a much more open view of the terminal
face. Any further was risking a potential accident miles from help but
that didn't put others off, however we were content so ambled back
down and retreated to the warmth of our hostel, ready for another
journey up the West Coast the next morning.
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