Not too much to say about this part of the trip, mainly because from the moment we got on the bus at Abel Tasman it tipped it down. This meant by coach group consensus, we had to skip some of the walks on the way to Westport. The surfing at Westport was cancelled too, so lots of group card games instead. I debated whether or not to set an alarm to watch the England game at 02:00, but thought instead to get a good night's sleep. Or so I thought. At 4am, an air raid style siren went off in the town, which was a bit confusing at first, then it dawned on us that there were signs all over NZ saying that if a siren goes off, it's a Tsunami warning. Needless to say, I was absolutely bricking it! The siren stopped, which led to more confusion in the dark, so myself and a friend went to scout out what was going on. The town was silent, so in the end, we just went to bed. In the morning, we asked and it turns out it was for the volunteer fire brigade- they don't have phone reception always in the town so use the siren to call the volunteers. So no Tsunami, but I definitely don't want to be woken up by an air raid siren again in a hurry. Apparently my bro Rich had the same thing a few years ago too when in Westport.
Next up, we went to Frans Josef- a rainforest and glacier a few hours south. We stopped off to see a wild seal colony and "pancake rocks" which were both pretty cool. It continued absolutely chucking it down all afternoon, very much putting the rain in rainforest. The next day, we had a small window of good weather to go to see the even smaller glacier. I hadn't quite realised that you couldn't get that close to it. Apparently there was a closer vantage point a few years ago until it the path got swept away in 2019. The glacier is also shrinking at an extrodinary rate, with global warming at play. If you do want to get closer, the only option is the expensive helicopter and hike. They weren't running when we were there anyway due to the bad weather, but I've heard it's worth it. Instead, we went for a very soggy walk, where I discovered my newish rain mac isn't that waterproof and we spent the rest of the afternoon hair dryering our wet shoes and clothes.
We were all quite happy to move on from FJ, and even happier to be treated to the sun on our way down to the absolute jewel of the south island, Queenstown.
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