New Zealand in review - day 4 - Franz Josef

Part 2 of our day in Franz Josef....

A pic of Luke and Georgia on a quadbike outside the adventure place where Luke was waiting for his quadbike tour.

And a pic of the Franz Josef glacier. Thankfully this view was only a few minute walk from the car park. My type of hiking :)

New Zealand in review - Day 4 - Franz Josef

I didn't sleep soundly. I felt uneasy. And when I woke up I found that Georgia had been sick during the night and was suffering from a nasty bout of gastro. Thank goodness for a motel laundry about 10 steps from our unit. It had an honesty box for laundry money and I told the owner that he could probably retire on the proceeds of the MANY loads I did.


Motel was http://www.bellavistafranzjosef.co.nz/ and Adam, the owner, was a treasure.


The weather was clearing so Luke got to tick one of his 'New Zealand to do list' items off the list when he took a helicopter flight up into the snow
at the top of the Glacier. He said it was FANTASTIC.


Georgia started to improve during the early afternoon so with Nic and me taking the munchkins to the playground and then for a walk, Luke headed off on a quad bike excursion. Mud, scenery and bikes apparently are a perfect boy combination. Each to their own I say!


The thought of driving down to Queenstown with a recovering Georgia + Maestro of the Carsick Ethan didn't appeal so wonderful Adam priced flights for us. At $2500+, it would have been cheaper to fly to Australia. It was one of those rare times in life that I would have loved to be rich and say 'fabulous, yes, no problem, we'll do that then'. Alas for living within your means.

New Zealand in review - Day 3 - Christchurch to Franz Josef

The day started so simply with a lovely drive across the Canterbury Plains. Beautiful green fields, snow capped mountains - just lovely. And then we hit the winding road into Arthur's Pass. Still gorgeously scenic.

Had lunch at the Wobbly Kea (amazing cheese/garlic bread!)
at Arthur's Pass and we were not two minutes down the road when Ethan got car sick. And that turned out to be car sick episode 1 and episodes 2, 3 and 4 were to follow.

Winding mountain roads don't often present easy places to stop to try and clean up and change a very unhappy little guy. It wasn't fun.

By the time we got to Hokitika, our thoughts of a nice wander around the greenstone/jade, glass, jewellery shops were replaced with a trip to the local supermarket to buy towels!


By the time we arrived in the lovely little township of Franz Josef, I was totally over car travel - as I think all five in the car were - and very glad of the promise of a rest day to follow. Little did I know.