Time to catch up on my blog after being "off the Internet" on the wild, west coast of New Zealand.
Its Friday pm here and we are back in Christchurch at the Chateau on the Park..

By last Sunday night, Liz right foot had swollen up to about twice normal size, as a result of her many sandfly bites after our mountain hike last week, and a whole day of caving and rafting. We went into Westport and found a "chemist". I was able to buy some dexchlorpheniramine maleate antihistamines for her, and some elastic wrap, sorta like Coban. I have not seen any ACE bandages here. The groceries and chemists are very interesting; they do not have nearly the amount or number of OTC meds we would expect in the States. No Benadryl. Only cough drops, and few cough and cold remedies. Two of the nonsedating antihistamines are OTC here- and its funny to see it spelled "Clarytin". I wrapped Liz foot and we decided to help her elevate it and not tramp on it for the next couple of days.
So Monday, we went out to Cape Foulwind to see the seal colony. There is a wonderful bay on the tip of this peninsula, and a great restaurant, the Bay House Restaurant overlooking it. After a short (<100 meters) walk out to see the seals, we went back and had breakfast on the porch. The "nested eggs" and muesli were great with hot tea. After that we drove down the wild and rocky coast to the "pancake rocks" at Punakaiki. These are wonderful formations, where the seal pounds through many arches and spouts up in blowholes. We arrived just before the rain, and Liz managed to hobble around the path, being a good sport. We then continued down the coast to Hokitika, an artists colony. We took a quick walk across the street to look at the glowworm dell (nice, but nothing like the cave rafting) before hitting the sack.
The next morning, Liz's foot was still pretty swollen, so we decided to just hang around Hoki for the day. We had read about a class where she could make her own greenstone jewelry- and she was pretty interested in that. So we left her in the hands of the Mad Kiwi at the Just Jade Experience for the day. Vicki and I walked the shops and drove out thought the beautiful Hoki valley to the Hokitika Gorge. When we came back, we took Liz through a few shops and also visited the Kiwi Centre. This is an eclectic menagerie that is obviously someone's aquarium hobby that got away from them. I could do without the giant eels. However, the kiwi exhibit was great. They are in a nocturnal room, so they were awake and feeding, and they come up to just a few feet away from you, so you can really see them well. Before we left Hokitika, we had a great meal of Indian food. We each had a lamb dish. Because the sun sets so late here, we were able to leave Hoki at 6:30 pm and drive down to Franz Josef , reaching that town at the foot of the glaciers while it was still light out at 8:30 pm. The weather was great, for the wet West Coast, and we could see the mountains marching down to the sea the whole way.
Wednesday morning, I got up and made arrangements to do a glacier hike. Liz and Vicki checked out the town, and walked up the valley to the glacier foot. However, to go up onto the glacier, you need to take a guided tour. So at 10:30 I reported to Franz Josef Glacier Guides. Here they give you a set of special leather boots with hobnails in them, a pair of "talonz" (which are just special ice crampons for the boots) and a Goretex parka. About 40 of us hopped on the bus to the carpark up the valley, and then we hiked in to the foot of the glacier, about 2 km. over very rough country. Once at the foot of the glacier, we split into 12 man teams, then started climbing- straight up the ice. After going up just a little ways, we stopped and put on our talonz. Then keep climbing, up and up over ice that graduallly cleared of rock and became the most beautiful turquoise blue color. We crossed over two crevasses on ladders, climbed up many pitches with ropes and finally at the "top" walked next to an 800 meter tall huge waterfall cascading down the valley wall onto the side of the glacier. We traversed down into a few crevasses,and walked through an ice cave- something I've always wanted to do. Overall we spent about 2 hours on the ice. We walked about 8km total, and climbed about 200 meters in altitude- although it seemed a lot more because it was such rough climbing. The glacier was awesome, and as we came back down, the sun came out and I could see, looking back, that for all our effort, we had only climbed up a very small portion of the glacier in our half-day trip. The mountains here are marvelous- they rise right out of the sea straight up to tens of thousands of feet. You really get a feel for how small you are on the face of the Earth in this landscape. When I got back down, I had the world's best tasiting peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, and we took off back north to the Hokitik area again. We stopped in town and grabbed "takeaway" fish & chips for supper. This time, instead of staying in a campgroung, we "free camped" out in a DOC campground on Lake Kaniere. This beautiful lake is tucked a way at the foot of the mountains. I took a swim in the lake, and fell into bed.

Thursday morning, after breakfast, we drove around the lake to Dorothy Falls. This is a beatiful waterfall out in the middle of nowhere. It had rained the night before, and we could hear the waterfall from the lakefront, over 100 meters away. After coming back into Hoki to do a few errands, we drove over the Arthurs' Pass. This is a wonderful feat of engineering. and one of the steepest mountain passes I've ever been over. The high country of New Zealand is dry and beautiful and the rivers really are turquoise in color due to the glacial snowmelt and powder in them.

Coming down into Canterbury, we stayed the night at Ashley Gorge at a wonderful campsite filled with families with little children on holiday. The kids here are really cute, and Vicki and I both have the impression that they are really allowed and encouraged to be children, and are less media-influenced than U.S. kids. All of them were wearing sun hats and sunscreen also, and a sundress here for a little girl means long sleeves,a nd long skirt with ruffles! We enjoyed watching them play in the dirt, river, swings, etc.

This morning we came back into Christchurch, said a sad goodbye to our campervan. In one week we put on 1400+ km, and did SO many activities. It will be a relief to stay back here in the hotel with soft beds and our own shower. Tomorrow we start down to the deep South of the country, and Monday I start orientation in Winton. Its been a great holiday, but we are anxious to "light" and stay in one place for awhile.

Today is Monday, we are in Graymouth on the West coast headed south. Lots to tell about, but since I have a fast internet connection, I'm going to just post pictures for now. they are in random order- see if you can figure out where they are from reading below!