Slept well and took our 50c showers. A funny setup where your 50c operates the light in the shower. So you stumble in the semi-light getting ready, insert the 50c, the light comes on, you're on a six minute timer and ouch! the water's scalding so you waste a minute selecting between pure steam and straight-off-the-mountain cold. There are more of these sand flies waiting in the car park. Worse than mozzers as they appear to hunt in packs.
We had a mad dash back up to Fox Glacier which is a better bet than Franz Josef as you get closer to the ice. You're still roped off 100 yards away for your own safety which, when you see the scale of it, is a good thing. This isn't enough for some, most of whom go up to the river edge but some stagger up the scree slope and out of sight, presumably onto the glacier itself. One witless fool returning with a rapidly melting chunk.
We head over to Lake Matheson, the Mirror Lake. Despite the absence of any obvious wind there's obviously enough to disturb the water and the trip reduces to a trudge round a lake. We take a bet on the seal colony at the end of the road being free from tourists en masse. It must be, having driven the 10km over gravel roads the seal colony is another 1.5 hours on foot. We decline.
We scoff a quick lunch (cheesecake) and head back down to Munro Bay, where a map at the hostel suggested "thar be penguins." After a half hour walk through the forest we hit the sand fly infested beach. The penguins are here from July to December. December 22nd is too late. A final stop at Ship Creek just as the low cloud was becoming rain where there were purported to be dolphins. I jumped out to read the notice board and quite a few sandflies jumped in. No mention of dolphins and these sandflies were buggers to get rid of. We head over Haast Pass in low mood.
The two main waterfalls have no pre-warning so you shoot past the side of the road car parks. Over the pass the weather looks better and indeed the views over Lake Wanaka are excellent contrasting nicely with the cloud at the western end.
We roll into Wanaka itself at half-eight or so and our room is a motel unit. Wanaka seems to be a recently built town with plenty of decent facilities though we opt for a takeaway Chinese to keep the budget in order. Shakespeare in Love is playing on the TV which wastes a pleasant three hours.
Bullock Creek Lodge, Wanaka S44.69629 E169.13693 Elev. 331m
