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The bad weather almost caught up to us again. It was raining as we left Franz Josef yesterday morning. We did several hiking stops during the day. One was to the blue pools, which was gorgeous, and there was even a suspension bridge. After traveling through Haast pass, we spent the night in Makarora, which seems to be more of a campground with a cafe, than a town. We stayed in A-frame cabins and cooked in the camping kitchen.
I ran into a sheep this morning, literally. I woke up early, and on my way to the showers a sheep came bounding around the other corner of the building and crashed into me with a “baaaa!” I almost peed my pants! I squealed because I though it was a dog at first. Then the sheep was just standing there staring at me, so I baaaaa-ed back at the sheep and it went wandering away. Too weird.
The bus stopped in Wanaka for lunch. I should have taken an extra day and stayed in Wanaka, but I continued on to Queenstown. Next time! On the way we stopped at the original AJ Hackett bungy jumping site. It was cool to see the first commercial site. A few people from the bus jumped, and then we continued on to Queeny. Queenstown reminds me of Bend, OR. It’s a touristy mountain town, that many people have written off as too touristy, but I still find it charming. Some of us met for dinner at Fergburger. It was the best burger that I’ve probably ever had. I got the Bun Ladin, which is a falafel burger. We met for goodbye drinks later, since tomorrow, most of us from the bus will be going our separate ways. The only ones continuing on from my bus will be the two girls we picked up in Greymouth.
A piece of Kiwi trivia for you: New Zealand has the highest per capita sheep population in the world. Which means sheep outnumber them by 12 to 1.