Jug No. 4

We arrive at our next stop while it is raining. Unfortunately we don't like the campsite that much at all, there is no nice lounge and the internet/reception is so bad that we can't plan as planned. We make ourselves comfortable in the bus and look forward to the upcoming packrafting tour tomorrow. At around 9 p.m., less than 12 hours before the tour, we get an email with the heading Tour cancelled. No real information about it in the text. We try to call in vain and are quite disappointed. So we sleep in the next morning and I try to call again. This time I reached someone and he explained to us that the rain had made the river too high and that's why the tour had to be cancelled. We first have breakfast and then drive into town and want to use the WiFi in the café and plan the rest of our time on the South Island. We are making good progress and book the ferry, a whale tour and a few campsites. However, planning for the glacier is a little more difficult for us. We actually want to do a Heli & Hike tour, but we are very unsure whether it is worth it. Ultimately we decide against it. Because we can't think of anything better, we drive a scenic route in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day at the campsite when the weather is nice. An accident happened here in the evening, which I haven't mentioned in the blog yet. There is a curse upon us... the curse of the French Press. While cooking dinner, I break the (now 4th!!!) coffee pot. We think about all the past pots and can even remember every single experience.
12/20 - 1. Jug: after several days with a small crack on the bottom from which it dripped, Maren drops it and it breaks into 1000 pieces

12/25 - 2nd pot: The plastic was bent from the hot water, I tried to straighten it again and the filter broke off

10.01. - 3. Jug: poor load securing... we left the washing up from breakfast on the worktop in our kitchen box and didn't put it in the footwell. There was a rattle on a sharp curve and the box fell down. We stop and when we get out I say to Maren: "Now the French press is definitely broken again." and laugh. We open the door and everything is full of broken glass and coffee grounds.

01/20 - 4. Pot: While cooking dinner, the pot lid falls out of my hand directly onto the pot in which we have the hot vegetable broth.

Four jugs are three too many and that's why we decide not to get any more. Let's see if we can keep it up. The next morning we plan to get up early and go for a hike nearby.
It starts off pretty steep and we struggle to the top with sore muscles and no morning coffee. Several times we are on the verge of breaking off because everything hurts, the path winds its way up in a rather boring way and we somehow just don't feel like it. We motivate ourselves to continue to a lookout. According to the sign, it's only 30 minutes from there and we still force ourselves up there. Luckily, because we have an amazing panoramic view from the “summit”. After a snack we struggle all the way back down. For the sore muscles even worse than high. Because we've seen trail runners here the whole time, we try to jog down a bit. The sooner this terrible, endless journey will end, we think. Surprisingly, despite wearing hiking boots, it works quite well and is even fun. However, Maren developed a blister while going up, which only gets worse with and without jogging. She walks part of the way barefoot, tries on my shoes and finally she makes a plaster with a tissue and the packaging and walks the rest of the way with shoes. We are very happy when we are finally down. We collect two hitchhikers who are sitting on our bed with their luggage and let them out into the city. I jump into the lake to cool off and we continue on to the glacier.