Bye Bye Mundane Life!!: Glacier Country

The weather changed dramatically after our weekend in Hokitika....the rain and wind swept in across the West Coast! We arrived at the Franz Joseph Glacier the following day, the rain cleared for long enough to go for walk up to the base of the Glacier....it was pretty impressive, but even more amazing was whilst on the walk we bumped into a guy Chris had worked with in Antartica 6 years ago!!! They'd never kept in contact and Chris didn't even know he lives in NZ! We drove onto Fox Glacier, but by this point a massive storm had blown overhead so we spent the whole day and night sticking it out in 'Mo'....pretty scarey at times as she got blown all over the place, and the access road to the beach we'd been parked up had been severely washed out in places! The road to Fox Glacier had also been flooded so we only managed to see it from a distance! Dissappointed with the terrible weather we drove onto our next destination, Wanaka! It was freezing cold here, with fresh snow fall at only 500m above us, still raining and hidden in clouds we were about to drive straight out of town when Chris got the idea to try and track down this guy (Mike Powell) we'd met at the Glacier. We managed to track down his phone number and 2hrs later we were sat in the pub having a few pints of Monteith's Beer watching the cloud clear to reveal a perfect sunset over the snow covered peaks which surround the stunning Lake Wanaka....amazing how your view can change of a place so quickly!! Mike turned out to be a top class guy and offered us to come stay with him for few days! So we spent the next 3 nights sleeping in luxury in a proper bed with ensuite bathroom (complete with clawfoot bath - our first bath for over 6 months!!!). We spent the days doing some stunning walks around the area, including the 1100m accent of Roy's Peak walking up into the rapidly melting snow - the weather had yet again changed dramatically and we had perfect hot, sunny days!