Franz Josef > Greymouth
The rain never stopped, just got heavier or lighter throughout the night. Catherine got up early and walked the mile into town to the Heli rendezvous. The walk was lovely in the morning. There was rainforest on either side of the road and no cars - it felt great. Unfortunately because of the cloud cover the heli-hike had been cancelled so Catherine walked back to camp and joined Gavin & James for breakfast. Since the town was a fairly miserable place, especially in the wet we decided to cut our losses and leave a day earlier than planned.
However, we wanted to see the Glacier first so we headed up to the car park and walked to the viewing point, again through the rainforest: it seemed wrong to be looking at a Glacier in a rainforest. We then grabbed lunch in cafe in town and hit the road heading for Greymouth - a very aptly named place! (The forest feels like it could reclaim the land in no time at all - anything not tended carefully seems to be re-absorbed).
Whilst the town was all a bit grey, we did get to see a great sunset, over a raging sea (which is still roaring away in the background). James was in heaven, because of al the stones on the beach. He also helped to build a fire by carrying over some driftwood sticks and throwing them on (When James first saw the fire he said "Fire Fire Nee-Nor" remembering the emergency drill from his Richard Scarry book!).
9:56:12 PM 
|
