Castle Hill, South Island, New Zealand

Franz Josef Glacier. I’d taken a Sea Legs pill before going to sleep last night to ward off any travel sickness that was thinking about coming along for the ride; I want to buy stock in this product, as Ive not had even a twinge of nausea since I started taking them and we have gone down some seriously windy roads. The trouble is that it makes me really tired: Id fought off sleep all afternoon yesterday, so thought that by taking it at night I would have a better chance of enjoying my day today.

Turned out to be a bit of a bust: rain rain rain (which is annoying as Im told it was 34C and sunny in Christchurch today. It hasn’t been that nice in the entire 10 months I’ve lived in that damn place). We had to cancel our heli-hike at the Glacier, not that we had much choice. It’s not as thought they would fly in this sort of weather. We’ve our fingers crossed that the skies will clear up for tomorrow as it will be our last chance to do the flight. Im quite reminded of my Mt Cook visit back in May. Id been so excited to get to the mountain and when I finally did, the entire park was shrouded in rain clouds. I left after a night, never having seen the damned thing.

Castle Hill

The trip out to the coast was pretty nice. We stopped off for a few hours at Castle Hill, a rather rocky spot along the highway. Id remarked, after seeing a stone circle in the middle of the rocky field, to Katherine how it seemed a rather pagany place, and that I bet the local heathens had used the spot for a summer solstice rite (as it had just passed). Turns out I wasnt too far off as Ive since learned that the Dalai Lama proclaimed Castle Hill to be a “Spiritual Center of the Universe” in 2002.

Katherine a top Castle Hill

After faffing about on the rocks for a bit we continued on our way to Franz Josef. By the time we got here (after stopping for dinner in Hokitika) and checked into The Glowworm Cottages (super nice and super cheap accommodation), the weather had turned, which isn’t all that surprising considering that we were now in the rain forest. We finished up the day with a few bottles of wine and a game of Trivial Pursuit (which I lost; I could blame it on being because it was a Kiwi version and 25 years old, but the reality is that Kat is way better at this than I am!).

Do not feed the kea, Arthur's Pass NZ

The next day, instead of going on our helihike (thanks to the splendid weather), we spent $12 each to watch a 20-minute video about the West Coast. It was a bit of a dud: crazy cinematography (the movie opened with an upside down shot coming in over the water then righted itself dizzyingly.), dramatic music, and really choppy editing. Very disappointing considering the cost. At least it was in IMAX.

Afterward we drove down to Fox Glacier so we could check into our backpackers (The Ivory Towers, which is super nice as backpackers go. In fact Ive yet to be disappointed in any of the places we have stayed.) which we were staying in free for the night. Not really planning to do much here, we more or less added this stop bc of the free accommodation and its proximity to Franz Josef (plus we had a day to kill before we could do the jade carving in Hokitika).

So now, here we are: holed up in the backpackers. I’m pretty much waiting for the night to fall so that I can go to bed. I’m already sick of being in this wee room, and wondering why the weather has to be so shit. Apparently its supposed to be crap for the next four days. Awesome.

Related posts:

1. King of the castle
2. Weekend getaway to Akaroa
3. Moving on!
4. Aoraki / Mt Cook
5. Milford Sound