9 - Franz Josef Glacier and Arthur's Pass

This was supposed to be our final day in the campervan and we were still a 7-hr drive from Christchurch from where we were on the West Coast, with no stops. Because it was Kathy's birthday and we were having so much fun, we decided to extend our trip by 1 more day, giving us a chance to sightsee on the return trip, too. We woke up early and to rain again. The first thing we did was to conquer Franz Josef Glacier. Highway construction put us a little behind schedule, but not too badly. Another amazing glacier. Fox and Franz Josef are only separated by 25km of hwy, which means they are right next to each other as the crow flies. Franz Josef is bigger and had a lot more people than Fox, but not so many that it felt crowded, or even peopled.

We saw more beautiful waterfalls, rain and hints of sunshine. The rest of the day we pretty much drove, as we had a long way to go. We heard about a great bakery in Ross, where we bought what turned out to be marginal desserts, then lunched at Lake Mahinapua. The West Coast is definitely lake country -- we saw more kayaks today than the rest of the trip combined.

Eventually we started the road to Arthur's Pass. This pass is the most persnickety pass of the 3 that cross the Southern Alps. It's the highest, has the steepest grade (16%), the narrowest road, and the most unpredictable weather. Of course, it was raining when we started our trek. The highway has some unusual, but clever features, such as road coverings to protect the cars from the falling boulders from the cliffs above, and a funnel that re-routed one of the waterfall streams over the highway lanes into the abyss below. We had to cross a long viaduct that is endearingly known as Death's Corner.

After being accosted again by Keas everytime we stepped out of the campervan, we started our voyage down the other side of Arthur's Pass. This side was under construction and thus reduced to a dirt road. Did we mention it was raining? Anyway, we took a few short tramps on the way down, most notably the Bridal Veil and Devil's Punchbowl. Devil's Punchbowl reminded us of the Lower Yellowstone Falls, but in the setting of a rainforest. It was impressively tall at 420 feet. On the way to Christchurch, we came across this lovely restaurant / inn in the valley below. We had a wonderful lamb birthday dinner and decided to stay there for the evening. They had horse stables, beautiful gardens with a pond and an irresistible ambience. We camped in a grassy field out back.

We woke up early the next morning to a beautiful, crisp morning in the mountains (we thought we were in the valley, but it turned out we had a long way yet to get to the bottom). Our propane had run out over night, so we didn't have any heat. It was chilly, to say the least. The drive back to Christchurch was beautiful. The mountains went on continuously, which we realized later we should have expected since there are 5 ski slopes in that particular area. The road didn't get any smoother or straighter on our descent. We moved through rugged brown landscapes to gentler green landscapes. There wasn't anytime for lookouts or tramps today, as we needed to drop off the campervan by 9:30am to catch our 11:45am flight to Wellington. The drive through Christchurch this time was much better than the first time (Steve was now used to driving a large campervan with a manual transmission, gear shift on the left, driving on the left-hand side of the road).