It starting raining again in Fox Glacier, but we were able to escape to the sunshine for a couple of days. Here are a few pictures of the rain run-off from the mountains we saw on our way out of town.
This is the river going out of Fox Glacier. It was up very high and we even saw some glacier ice chunks at the edge of the banks
Bruce Bay
We made it to Makaroa where we spent the night at the Makaroa Mountainview Lodge; it rained during the night there as well, but that was the end of it.
The views from our drive in the morning were amazing! This panoramic photo of Lake Wanaka with the rainbow doesn't do the real thing justice.
We stopped in the town of Wanaka for coffee at Beanies Cafe. Had to have a break along the way; haven't guessed our weakness yet, have you?
Cromwell: the desert of New Zealand. This was a great stop along the way. All of a sudden the rainforest country turns into a desert for just a bit. However, have you ever seen vineyards in a desert?
Nice historic mining area to make a quick stop for some photos.
Since the weather was so nice we decided to drive on to Queenstown. Didn't stick around, but wanted to make a day of beautiful driving weather to see the countryside.
In the middle of pretty much nowhere is Cardrona. This is an historic, but quite quaint hotel/restaurant dating back to about 1875. Sometime back in it's history it is said that the owner and his wife split. She left, but wanted half of everything; so, he had the main building cut in half and delivered to her, then continued business. The headlights of the old car in front of the hotel/restaurant are always on.
We had a great lunch at the restaurant; venison burger and chips!
Before we left, Linda made a few calls.
Our next night's stay was only 3K down the road from the old Cardrona Hotel. We stayed at the wonderful Waiorau Homestead. Blythe and Ann were awesome hosts and all the amenities were tops! On our arrival, they set out a cheese board and wine. On the wine label was "W-5". We looked on the back of the label and it read, "Which Was What Was Wanted." (W-5).
Right in the backyard of the homestead was this mountain side just waiting to be explored. We walked an hour up the side of it and was able to look down into the beautiful Cardrona Valley.
Sheep, cows, and rabbits running wild.
This sheep followed us Baa'ing all the way until he finally met back up with his flock.
One of the cows wondering what we were doing in her territory.
We headed back on Saturday. The picture below is of Lake Hawea.
This is a twin lake next to Lake Wanaka
Waterfalls absolutely everywhere! The waterfall in the bottom right corner is called
"Trickle One".
People like to stack rocks, I guess it makes them feel good to make little shrines; what else is there to do?
Back in Fox Glacier and back to work.
These are some of the perks of cleaning rooms in a motel. People leave tons of items behind.
Flip Wilson used to say, "Working as a garbage man is a great job, five bucks an hour and all you can eat".
We had a bit of a jolt today; while cleaning a room everything began to shake, rattle and roll. Wow! We had an earthquake! 4.4 on the richter scale. Then, at around 9:45 p.m. we felt another earthquake. This one was a 3.7!
That's it for this edition.
