Nelson to Franz Josef

Hey guys! Jess and I are currently on the road. We are headed to Franz Josef. The last few days have been interesting and fun. We drove out of Nelson down to Westport along the Buller Gorge. This drive is often described as one of New Zealands longest and most scenic drives. It follows along the Buller River and flows out to the beautiful Tasman Sea. We stopped by Nelson Lakes National Park park and did a nice little walk (45 mins) along the lake where we had a little picnic and the bus picked us up. From the dock where we ate we could look down into the water and see a dozen or so giant eels. Just above them were a bunch of ducks and a few black swans. This was so weird to see! Honestly I didn't know that eels existed outside of salt water. I touched one of them with my foot. :O) The lake was pretty and the walk refreshing.
Along the drive we have seen lots of sheep, but aside from them, there are tons of deer farms! I will just jump ahead of the time-line here.---This morning we visited a little museum, sort of. The man who runs it is an Ex Deer Killer. Here in NZ that was an actual professional title mostly back in the 50's-70's. There were no native four legged creatures on the island before it was inhabited by the Europeans. The deer were introduced for sport and to help beautify and balance the land. Well, the deer spread and soon destroyed much of the native bush. There had to be a way of controlling the population. So hunters started on foot shooting the deer and developed a relationship with Germany to export the meat. Anyways to shorten this long story, they eventually started using helicopters to shoot the deer from and to transport the meat. One man had a brilliant idea to start farming the deer, for industry and population control. The men started jumping out of the helicopters onto each deer's back, tackling them, binding their legs, and would take them to be farmed. They started shooting nets over the deer (that was the next method to evolve as well as tranquilizer darts and shock).....interesting history. It was fun to learn about. The professionals actually were called to the US at one point to help transport some wild buffalo to an Indian reservation. The museum calls this deer capturing last great adventure of the New Zealander.
So the first night out of Nelson we stayed in a small coal mining town called Westport. I don't think that I had ever seen a real piece of raw coal in my whole life....let alone smelt it. Really quite a bad smell. Everybody here uses it in their furnaces for heat and so forth... Coal miners. I only relate them to the people in books I've read who have terrible conditions and often died early because of lung problems...but apparently it is fine here and the people make a nice living. :O)
The next day, yesterday, Thursday for you all. We travelled from Westport down to Lake Mahinapua. We trekked three really nice trails. The first was right out of Westport along the coast. Stunning. The second was Pancake Rocks I will put up photos. There were stratified layers of limestone that formed towering pillars off the shore. There were natural blowholes, a great bush walk, and splashy rocks. We both really enjoyed the views. Our third walk was only about twenty minutes round trip, but was easy to spend some time at the destination (aside from the cold). The trail led us to the lake Mahinapua. Jesse loved it, he was shooting all of the photos trying to capture Mt. Cook (the highest peak in the southern hemisphere, I think) He got some great shots. Oh! We did this walk later that night around 12:00 to see the glowworms on the walkway and to get some night shots of the mountain. We had a really nice time. Our accommodation was called the Pu Pub for short. We had an amazing meal there that the owner (84 years old) prepared, huge steak, potatoes, salad, pasta salad, bread, corn on the cob, mixed veggies, and an awesome venison stew! All for about $6 US. I was going to take a picture but couldn't pull myself away from the food to grab the camera. :O) yum. Fun day, fun evening.
Since I started the letter we have arrived in Franz Joseph, walked around town to the information center, bought groceries, had about three cups of tea, and are resting before the nights activities. Oh, There was a costume contest last night, everyone had to be something that begins with the first letter of their name. I wasn't going to do it, and Jess and I spent the whole time everybody was shopping calling family and arranging flight confirmations. We returned to the bus and all the girls were like "Ah, you havvvve to...." so I ran down the street and found some fabric that I could transform into an outfit. So... I used my little sewing kit, found some other supplies in the bush (ferns, long leaves to braid, and some other decorative things) and created "Jungle Jane" from George of the Jungle. I had my water color pencils to paint my face, (Hiedi) and the whole outfit turned out really well. There are some really great prizes for best costume, (skydiving, bungy jumping, dinners) Tonight we find out who was chosen. ;O) Jess was a surf Jock, he wore his surfing outfit.
Anyways tomorrow we are planning a hike from town up to the base of the Franz Joseph Glacier. Many people are paying to go up there but I think that we will have just as good a time as any doing it on our own. It will be a little more exciting and nice to get away from the tour a little bit.
Love You All!! Jessica