April 19 Greymouth to Franz Josef Glacier A short drive today from no rain into variable light to heavy rain at Franz Josef Glacier. Fortunately, the hotel got their power restored a few hours after we checked in. All the way south there were periodic signs of the intense winds from a couple of days ago. There was a small truck on its side in a pasture about 30-40 yards off the road. At places there were many trees down. Sometimes they were all just snapped off at the trunk and sometimes the whole tree was just blown over along with a chunk of ground. Damages to buildings were less visible, at least from the road we were on. As we got close to Franz Josef Glacier there was a stretch of nearly a mile where all the telephone poles along the road were down. Our hotel is the nicest one weve stayed at. Too bad we are leaving in the morning. This is a nice area if the weather was better. Were kind of wishing we were staying here another night or two. Hopefully it will be nice in the morning so we can at least see the glacier before our long drive south to Te Anau. Ive kind of given up on seeing the mountains clearly for at least another few days. Reading the ads for the various tourist attractions and seeing the pictures is almost cruel at this point. Relax in your own private heated glacier water pool as the look up and watch the stars come out... Or pictures of the glorious Southern Alps snow capped against a blue sky and reflected mirror-like in a beautiful lake. On our drive today, we could only tell there were mountains to our left because the clouds/mist/fog was a bit darker there. But tomorrow is another day! To the south and across the Southern Alps we go.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 10:36:22 +0000
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