track our trek

next we flew to christchurch and rented a car...i wanted to see the fiords and glaciers on the south island. of the country's 5 million people, only about 1 million live in the south island. we quickly discovered driving from place to place means winding your way for hours through incredibly beautiful mountains w/ very tiny towns in between...it's at least five hours of driving between each destination...and there are very few radio stations in between! in contrast to the north island's volcanic activity, the landscape of the south island has been shaped by the ice ages...mountains and glaciers and lakes formed from melting glaciers are everywhere! between christchurch and queenstown, we stopped for a night at lake tekapo, population 350. the lake's blue color comes from fine rock particles ground up by retreating glaciers. then we spent a couple of days in queenstown, including a day trip to milford sound. we convinced rahel, from germany to come along with us for the 4 hr drive each way. milford sound was a bit disappointing, because the weather was terribly cold and rainy, so we couldn't see much of the cliffs rising out of the water. but apparently it is cold and rainy there 250+ days out of the year, so we couldn't be too disappointed!

the highlight of the south island tour for me was the franz josef glacier...it is amazing to see all that ice up close and imagine the entire region covered with it hundreds of years ago! and the sound it makes when huge chunks break off is so loud! we'd had a couple of cold rainy days, so we opted not to pay for a walk on the glacier itself. (didn't want a milford sound repeat...) but the sun did peek out from the clouds long enough for us to get a few good photos while we were there...really breathtaking!