This is ridiculous

Heading up to Fox Glacier

Getting closer...

The rock face overlooking Fox Glacier

Feedin' the fishes

View of Lake Hawea

Waiting for the pizza

This country is freakin' amazing!!! It's like a constant assault on the visual cortex. Just when I think it can't possibly continue to be stunning, it is. It's surreal.

We continued up the only highway that runs along the west coast as it took up inland. You'd think moving away from the coast would result in fewer views, but you'd be wrong. Once you move inland, you're literally moving along a glacial valley complete with sheet cliffs, morraine fields, glacial streams and simply fantastic views.

Our first stop was Fox Glacier, apparently the lowest glaicer to sea level in the world. All in all, I'd say the glacier itself was less dramatic than Franz Josef, but the valley itself was awesome (and I mean that it the true meaning of the word, not the oft-used colloguialism). On one side of the morraine field is one of the most spectacular granite (I think) cliffs I have ever seen. It slices down into the valley almost perpendicular to the valley floor - a sheer face of rock, most of which too steep for even lichen to settle. What was spectacular to me was not only the scale, but also the sheerness of it. There weren't any slopes on it, only a piercing wall of granite which commanded the attention of the whole valley, even the glacier. The glacier to me, appeared to be cowering around the corner from the majesty of this magnificent wall.

The kids walked to brief 20 minutes or so to the base of the glacier, and while you can get closer than Franz Josef, it's still not possible to get right up close and personal. You can tell by looking around the valley floor that rock slides and flooding are not an uncommon occurence.

Back in the van, we rolled about 45 minutes down the road to a local salmon farm which doubled as a cafe. Not surprisingly, the main menu item was salmon. Kiyomi scarved down sashimi, while Ren did his characteristic not eating. In this case, the distraction was the lure of feeding the salmon in the pens and watching the water boil with movement. Interestingly, there was a pond surrounding the pens in which were swimming these massive trout. Apparently, they've figured out it's a good place to hang for a meal.

Now, this is the point where I expected the views to end, or at least diminish. I was so wrong. Most of today's drive skirted us in and out of a glacial valley with steep walls on either side. The walls themselves are incredible steep, yet still covered in vegetation, including full grown trees and forests. The valley seems to be a relative knife edge, and so the walls feel close and overpowering as you travel along the valley floor. That said, the morraine fields are also vast and spectacular (have I overused that word yet?) We crisscrossed glacial rivers, skirted sheer rock walls, snaked through dense rainforest - all in a four and a half hour drive. I'm telling you, the beauty of this country is insane.

So, you'd think that would be the end, but no. It's like a visual onslaught as we come upon Lake Wanaka. A long, narrow, deep blue lake ringed by layers of steep green mountains plunging into the lake and rocky snow capped peaks just beyond. It's the type of view that takes your breath away. It had been overcast with high clouds most of the day, but right about the time we hit the lake, the sun came out for good. It only highlighted the deep blue colour of the lake.

And you'd think that would be it, but no, it continues. A we vear away from Wanaka into rolling pasture hills that have a vague similarity to alpine meadows. The land isn't flat, but certainly has a move gentle and rounded character. And then we round a corner and Lake Hawea opens up before us. I believe I uttered the words "Oh come on, this is freakin' ridiculous". A similar blue, but a wider lake for even more grandiose views.

It was at this point that I was reminded of a newspaper article I read a few years back that stated if you hadn't spent the last 10 minutes planning your trip to New Zealand, you've wasted the last 10 minutes.

We arrived in the town of Wanaka around dinner time (none to soon for Ren who was starting to get a little fed up with being trapped in the car most of the day). Dinner was from a little take out pizza van that happened to be in the park along the beach (and was actually quite yummy) while we watched some local skateboard kids doing some tricks (Kiyomi was convinced one of them looked like Justin Bieber).

The campground was overun with a school group from Dundedin. There was even a cricket match going on. We've been staying at these Top 10 places which seem to be everywhere. Pretty much luxury camping, but some are better appointed than others. Each one though, has it's own little something something. This one was surrounded by beautiful rolling mountains with sheep bleating distance away (unfortunately, the showers sucked!).

Tonight we're hunkered down, catching up on email and blogging now that we have internet access again (not so accessible in the mountains).