Queenstown

So I've just arrived in Queenstown today. To be honest I'm a bit confused on what day of the week it is since I've been doing so much driving and stopping in random places!! I left Nelson and Motueka on Monday and then headed down to Westport. I stopped just outside at a DOC campsite which was an old railway siding. It was an old village that basically disappeared into obscurity and is now just an old railway bridge without the town. Apparently the railway failed to make it and the whole thing was shut down in 1950 something. Oh yeah, the sand flies are brutal!!

From Westport I went down through Greymouth and was going to stop there the night. When I got there I decided against it. Not the most pleasant of places. Not bad, just lacking character and charm. A bit of a null entity!! I'm glad I carried on since I found a great DOC campsite just outside Ross. The campsite was by a lake with a nice secluded grass area. As it happens there were about 5 camper vans on the whole site which was really nice. I got talking to the others and there were an Australian couple who were touring for 2 weeks and the other couple were Kiwi's who were sightseeing their own country! Good on them.

The following day I went and saw the Glaciers. Franz Josef first and then the Fox glacier. I'll try and get some photos up here at some point (I'm using my phone to upload and type at the mo' - this is the first time I've had cell coverage for a week!!).

The next day I went over the Haast pass which is very beautiful. Parts of it reminded me of the high desert in California with the yellow bracken that you can see in Scotland. The weather was definitely bleakly Scottish! Very beautiful though.

Last night I stayed in Wanaka. That's the home to Mt Aspiring NP. I passed lake Wanaka and lake Hawea. Both lakes are huge. Very humbling.

Today it was raining in Queenstown! I gave a backpacker a lift from Wanaka to here and at the start he broke the handle off my sliding door!! Damn! ...My mobile home is a wreck!! I'm going to have to take a day out soon to try and go to the scrap yard to get some replacement parts!! All good fun!