The South, 三

After a royal experience at Queenstown, it was time to for Lake Wanaka

Another Typical Post Card Photo

1st September 2007: Fox Glacier Township
Another Christchurch and Queenstown, we knew that we had to mellow down our expectations for Fox Glacier Township. After all, the town seemed to exist solely for the purpose of accommodating tourists.

But nothing could prepare us for this.

Two pictures and that was all that it took to photograph the ENTIRE TOWN.

Just plain puzzling

Despite the dearth of intelligible lifeforms, there still exists a backpacker hostel, aptly named Ivory Towers Lodge.
The corridors were lit with a disturbing Geylang red hue.
Like Hippo Lodge, I thought it was rather homely, complete with a woodfired heater.

The Kitchen and Dining Area

Thanks to the exorbitantly priced meals sold in the town, we were compelled to "cook" some microwaveable food, complete with canned soups.
The uneventful night ended with a series of movies ranging from a standup comedy by Rowan Atkinson, The Piano and Schindler's List.
2nd September 2007: Fox Glacier Township
After losing one day to transport and a drearily boring town, we were finally off to embark on Fox Trot, a half day walk to Fox Glacier.

Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier falls 2,600m on its 13km journey from the Southern Alps down to the coast, and although retreating throughout most of the last 100 years, it has been advancing since 1985 at an average of about a meter a day. It is one the most accessible glaciers in the world, thus becoming a major attraction.

Red Rustic Transport

The journey begins...

There was certainly no going back, once we've started.

It wasn't long before we were greeted by an unsightly unimpressive mess of dirty-looking ice.

And the water accompanying it...

Of course, things look much whiter and purer further up...

Yes, it was massive. Probably enough ice to make ice kachang for the whole of humanity; past, present and future.

Wearing steel crampons is a must, to give us traction on the snow and ice.

I thought our guide really spoilt us, literally hacking his way through to create straight paths and steps on slopes.
I guess that wooden stick was supposed to lend us more support and balance.

But it made some look really bad. Heh.

For taking the horrid picture on top, Grace decided to take revenge.

I was just... nonchalant.

A further overdose of iceAlthough the walk was supposed to last for 4 hours, the time spent in the glacier was a miserly one hour... Sianz... Nonetheless, I thought scenery below the glacier was so enthralling, I was inspired to take more pseudo artistic shots.

Agent Orange Rocks

The Green Fights Back

Mineral Water Cooler

Ah... Just after taking the picture below, I clumsily dipped my whole foot inside the river and was promptly rewarded with a slushy wet boot.

With an audible squish in every other step, we reluctantly headed back.

My only natural souvenir from Fox Glacier was water taken from one of the numerous "water coolers". It was probably the most scintillatingly refreshing water I've ever tasted.

2nd September 2007: Fox Glacier Township/Greymouth

Have you ever seen a cow piss before?

They just go on and on and on and on and on and on...MOOOOOOOOOoooooo....

Next up on the itinerary was Greymouth, the largest town in West Coast region on the South Island of New Zealand. While I wouldn't go about to describe the town as LARGE, but it was dimensions bigger than Fox Glacier Township.

Duke Backpackers was our choice of hostel.

Run by an Israeli couple, it boasts numerous services like free internet, free beer at the bar, free this and free that. BUT, because the owners had just arrived back to New Zealand from their annual winter getaway, we were one of the two bunches of guests living there.

As if to make up for the not-yet-up-and-running-facilities, his wife was generous enough to cook a huge pot of soup containing barley seeds, mixed vegetables and a medley of stuff. While I thought the soup was intriguingly tasteful, the rest were more than horrified to see me consume the entire bowl.

The Dining Area with a cannot-make-it piano

Outside the bright and colourful backpackers hostel, things couldn't be more different.

We discovered that the town Greymouth was... grey. Yes, it was that explicit...

Grey River (seriously)

Strangely, things were a little less gloomy at night.Thankfully, our mouths remained a healthy pink at the end of the day.

On another note:
I HATE BLOGGER. Thanks to its archaic buggy website, I have lost quite a few pictures of Greymouth which explains why I posted so little on this dreary town. Anyway, it's time to move on or I will never be able to finish this post.

Next update will be 24 hours later.