December 31st was spent hiking (or tramping as they call it down here) to two different areas. The first was the hike to the Franz Josef glacier. Since it was my first time seeing a glacier, I was pretty impressed even though you couldn't really go near it without a guide. What amazed me the most though was the dramatic change in landscapes. If you turned your back to the glacier and looked out at the valley you saw this view.
Lush greenery and forest areas were the view all around and then you turned the other way and wham-o!
You had a glacier. I think that's been the most impressive part of New Zealand to me thus far is the fact that no matter where you are, you can look 360 degrees around you and everything is spectacular. There's thousands of pictures opportunities and I don't know where to even start or point my camera half of the time because it's so incredible. This valley in particular was filled with waterfalls. Some big and some small but there were so many of them you loose count eventually. Here was one of the more impressive ones.
After Franz Josef we drove south towards our camping destination at Wanaka but stopped for another small hike down to Monro Beach. It's an area where if you come at the right time of day you can see penguins and seals. Alas we were not there at the right time of day but the beach was stunningly beautiful and the hike was pretty amazing as well. The sandflies are not amazing though.
These guys were along the hiking trail. There weren't very many of them though so you had to be paying close attention otherwise you would have missed them.
So we left Monro beach and finished the drive to Wanaka. Apparently this was a big party area for New Years but we were camped too far out of town to check it out. So we hung out and played cards and rang in the New Years by just hanging out.
So today, January 1st, we woke up late and made the drive down to Queenstown. The drive there was amazing and the roads were just lined with thousands of wildflowers. It was so amazing we had to stop and take pictures.
A pretty amazing start to 2014 if I don't say so myself. Let's make it an amazing year everyone. Stay tuned for more adventures.
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