26.11.18 Roos - Lake Paringa

Fell asleep with the sound of waves, so we wake up to the sound of waves. And today, I manage to go on a morning walk with Patrick. We walk barefoot along the beach. It's drizzling lightly, but it doesn't matter. Our next journey takes us to the mountains to the Franz Josef Glacier. We continue to drive along the coast towards the snow-covered Southern Alps. In the town of Franz Josef, a very touristy place where a must-do is flying on a helicopter to the glacier, we head straight to the starting point for hikes on the glacier moraine. First, we hike towards the glacier, always maintaining eye contact. It's impressive to see what climate change has caused there, just like at home. This hike is popular among tourists, so we had good company on the trail. We also added two more smaller walks, still accompanied by the rainforest and the view of the glacier. Considering that we're only at about 200 m above sea level, the glacier comes down quite far. We leave Franz Josef to drive to the next glacier village, Fox, with the Fox Glacier. It's smaller, but the view of the glacier is equally beautiful. We drive towards a nice viewpoint for our lunch break and when we arrive and turn the camper around to park, we're wowed by the direct view of the glacier.

In the afternoon, we drive to the nearby Lake Matheson, which is famous for reflecting Mount Cook, the highest mountain in the South Island. However, today, with cloudy weather, that's not the case. We can barely see the high mountains, but the walk around the lake is still very nice. At the cafe, we have coffee and cake. New Zealanders have a good coffee culture with delicious coffee and pastries. And the best part is, suddenly Mount Cook is clearly visible.

Now, we continue our journey and head to a simple campsite by a lake. When we arrive, there's still space for us, and we enjoy an aperitif, bundled up. There are a lot of sandflies here. These small mosquitoes are well-known in New Zealand and they bite like mosquitoes. Patrick likes them more than me. So, we decide to have dinner indoors. It's not a problem with the cloudy weather.