Sweet As…New Zealand: Days 5&6

Being woken up by Amy’s driving through bouts of sleep, and eventually her asking me to drive, for the safety of myself and my friends, I got behind the wheel and drove us to Fox Glacier. Here, we put on some heavy duty boots, wool socks and other hiking equipment before heading out to climb New Zealand’s 3^rd largest glacier.

After a lot of walking and a few lessons on how and why the glacier formed, we finally approached the base of the massive, frozen beast that lay before us. We hiked about 1/5 of the way before strapping on our crampons, ice hiking spikes, and began hiking the intense trails of Fox Glacier. Weaving in and out of the frozen abyss, we touched the walls of ice, stomped on the tundra like path, and went through icy tunnels. Along the way, we took some pictures, talked more about the glacier, and even tasted some of the ice that was not (all that) dirty. As Justin, Dan and I drudged through the glacier path, we came along a small pool of crystal clear glacier water. We each dipped our hands in and got a nice drink of the ice cold water. Thirsting for more, I, the brave soul that I am, took a water bottle and filled it up, savoring the fresh ice mountain spring water for all of my friends to try. We passed it around, tasting the freezing cold, completely fresh spring water as we continued the hike. Hoping to pass another pool just like it, we hiked on and saw a whole lot of the glacier, more than any other group of half day adventurers saw. As we continued on, we found another pool where I once again filled both of our water bottles with the refreshing spring water. We met a nice, American couple from Texas who we shared our glacier treasure with. We continued downward and finally reached the starting point of our glacier walk. After a very long walk, we were all exhausted, and slightly hungover, from the day. We stopped, made the rest of the food we had, including Ramen, pizza and hot dogs, and then drove on, hoping to reach Christchurch at some point.

With Amy driving a majority of the night before, much to the relief of myself and everyone else, I once again braved the wheel and drove through the winding roads. With Emily Sieb as my co-pilot, she helped me to navigate our way to a good stopping point. With every campsite in the town we were in close, and looking for a place to stop, we settled for a nice little parking lot and called it a night. As day 5 ended, our trip was much more than the success we planned for.

The morning of day 6 started as Amy got behind the wheel and woke up the entire RV with her not so refreshing driving. Dan awoke with a cheery “Hi friends! Did I get the scooter?” after a plentiful 12 hour snooze, and the rest of us were quickly awake after the bouncing and swerving on the road. I swear, those jackrabbits and that wind really do affect your driving these days!

After we returned the RV, we headed back to the airport to fly home. As we checked in, the lady behind the ticketing counter told us that all of our luggage had to be less than 7kg. Freaking us all out, we started throwing away stuff we didn’t need; putting on multiple, multiple layers (I wore 7 T-shirts, a jacket, 3 pairs of socks, and a hoodie) we braved through security with wishful thinking. As soon as we got the clear to head to our gate, we peeled of our layers and waited for our flight home.

With 6 days in New Zealand, we only got to shower once, ate PB&J for too many meals, bungy jumped the 3^rd highest bungy in the world, climbed New Zealand’s 3^rd largest glacier, and road tripped on the left hand side of the road through the country. Crossing 2 things off of my bucket list, I ended the most epic (and expensive) vacation of my time in Australia and cannot wait to return to the country of “Sweet As”.

With finals looming before me, I wish you all happy and safe adventures until I tell you of my next excursions.

Until then,

Wilson