New Zealand 2009 - Tales of the Camera Sherpa - Part 11

A tale of two days. It was the worst of days. It was the best of days.

For those of you tracking us on your Google Map of New Zealand, we were going down the West Coast from Greymouth to Haast, an area that would take us past numerous beautiful vistas, two glaciers, and views of the Southern Alps.

We started out with the rain pouring once again. For the entire morning until 2 in the afternoon there was nothing but downpours and total socked in greyness. Things were very depressed in the car. We did stop at a bakery to pick up some bread. I noted the cool looking oven in the back. The people at the bakery invited us back and we got a tour of the oven. It is over 50 years old, uses electricity but is lined with a refractory type of stone that retains the heat. It was very cool and I appreciated the baker telling me all about it.

We arrived at the Franz Joseph Glacier at around 2 PM. It was still terrible out. We decided to watch a movie in the visitor center since nothing else was happening. By the time we were done, the rain had stopped and there were even patches of blue in the sky. We decided to take the short hike to the view point. It was well worth it. No rain and I must admit that though this is a 'touristy' thing, I really enjoyed it. We then went 30 kilometers to the Fox Glacier. The weather was actually clearing.

Then down the coast where we stopped at two lakes, one scenic overlook of the Tasman Sea, and one beach. Wife took around 300 pictures during the afternoon and got some of the highly prized golden light scenes at the last beach.

We finished up by having our best meal to date in NZ. We're in a hotel in Haast which is no where. The hotel restaurant is closed. Only the bar is open. Wife had another seafood chowder that was better than any of the others. I had a venison salad - best salad on the trip with not over cooked venison. She then had an excellent salmon with new potatoes and green beans. I had a roast rump of lamb with roasted cherry tomatoes and mashed potatoes. Everything was excellent. I was in lamb heaven. All the veggies were good. We enjoyed another Central Otango Pinot Noir. There was not one component of the meal that we didn't think was good. A great end to our day.

Note on pictures - it is just too, too, too slow for me to get them uploaded. I may have to wait until we are back before I can show more.