Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers

We woke up, checked out of our hostel in Christchurch and hit the road!  We had a long drive to get to Franz Josef Glacier.  See?

We started in Christchurch and it took us about 5 and a half hours to get to Franz Josef Glacier.  Then another 30 minutes to get to Fox Glacier, finally camping in Omarama.  It was a total of about 10 hours of driving (probably more because of driving conditions).  As you can tell, it would have saved us a ton of time if we could drive straight through the middle of the island, but there is a mountain range blocking the way, so we have to go all the way around!  Grr, nature!

Driving pics:

Just gorgeous (I'm talking about the view, not our greasy hair and unwashed bodies).

Check out that water!

We finally made it to Franz Josef Glacier and it was raining!  Now we don't need to shower for another 3 days at least!  Yipee!

It was about an hour walk to the glacier (the sign says an hour and a half, but it was an hour tops).  The path wasn't steep or anything, but there were a lot of slippery rocks towards the end, so we had to tread lightly.  Even though it was raining, it was a beautiful walk:

Waterfall:

Here's the video he was taking.

Since the glacier is almost impossible to see because I don't know how to use my camera and it just looks like a bright, white nothing, I put arrows in the pictures with glacier in them, so you can see:

Where's Aaron??

More waterfalls:

Check out the ridges in these rocks:

Glacier video.

We got as close as you can get walking.  To get any closer, we would have had to take a helicopter and do a guided glacier walk, which sounds incredible, but we just didn't have the time.

Climbed up a cliff thing to get a better view.

Looking the other way (glacier is behind me now):

Let's walk back:

Amazing!

Next up is Fox Glacier, which is only about a half an hour away.  We followed the signs, but it was getting late, so we didn't go all the way up to the glacier, we just stopped at a viewpoint kinda far away, hoping we would be able to see it.  Fox Glacier is smaller than Franz Josef, and since we got such a great view of the latter, we weren't that worried about it.  Once you've seen a glacier from relatively far away, you've seen 'em all.
This one was about a 5 minute walk from the parking lot:

Ta da!!!

I zoomed in with my camera and this is as good as it got:

Pretty lame with the fog, but check out that hawk flying by.  Badass.

We ran back to the car because we still had quite a drive to get to our campsite and it was getting late.  Pics from the road:

Now, I've seen my share of blue water, but this turquoise was a color I'd never even fathomed.  Impossible to capure on film, but trust me, it was stunning.

This view isn't too shabby either:

Aaron finally got the cow selfie he'd been trying to snap since we started our road trip.  You can't get much closer because the cows freak and walk away (trust me, this wasn't our first attempt at a cow sneak):

A herd of sheep (flock of sheep?) ran past us in the road!!!

We'd been waiting for our chance to see this, as it's something they tell drivers to watch out for often.  Yay!  We've finally got the official New Zealand experience.

Another part of our great experience are all of our sandfly bites (we got while camping by the beach at Able Tasman National Park), which itch like hives and look like boils:

As you can see, my feet are completely swollen (ankles too) and each bite feels like a bug has burrowed into my skin and is trying to start a family.  I couldn't even wear my tennis shoes for a couple days because of the swelling!  We lived on Benadryl and and anti-itch cream to survive, and it barely worked.  I wish I could say we toughed it out and stayed strong, but we scratched those suckers like crazy.  I still scratch them every day, which is why mine refuse to disappear.  What a complete nightmare.

The road trip continues!