New Zealand Day 12: glaciers

Woke up and packed up our stuff and were out by 10am. Stopped at subway and grabbed a breakfast and lunch footlong as we knew our day was going to be a lot of driving and we were off. Eyes set on monro beach to see some fjordland crested penguins and then fox and franz Josef glaciers. West side of the island is quite wet and rainforesty. The drive on haast pass was very windy with multiple one lane bridges and stops for one way traffic and road construction. But an hour and change we were to the west coast. Drove up to the monro beach pull off and started our hike to the beach. The book says 30 minutes one way and it was a solid thirty minutes and we were moving quickly. And then it started raining. By the time we got to the beach it was downpouring. We were there for maybe a minute before we decided we weren't going to see a penguin and started our half hour walk back to the car still being dumped on. Lol. Whoops. Fjordland penguins are very hard to see as they are out to see for months at a time and only return to shore to nest or to moult. I had my rain jacket on matt did not. He was soaked. Changed into some dry clothes and were on our way to fix glacier.

Hiked the half hour rock hop to a straight up hike only to have the rain start again and clouds close in. The glaciers in banff were better. Hiked down the half hour return in our sandals because why get your tennis shoes wet and back in the car. Stopped for a coffee in the town of fox glacier and decided where we were staying that night. Found a hotel on hokitika 2 hours north (4pm currently) drove to franz Josef glacier and did the 20minite return rock lookout. Again the glacier was tucked away. Both glaciers are on rapid retreat. The clouds made this one almost impossible to see. But we saw it. Cross it off the list.

Back in the car and hurriedly off to hokitika. Arrived at 7 dropped our car off at our bungalow and started our walk into downtown. Ordered pizza at fat pipi pizza-- the trex: all the meats topped with a sweet BBQ sauce. And 2 spaights. Yumm. The one nice thing about this town and the west coast is the sunsets. Picked up a couple beverages and watched the sunset over the ocean. Walked back to our bungalow and across the way was a glow worm dell--- they had glowworms in the trees and you could see them for free! Not as brilliant as the waitmo caves on the north island but they were cool. Then retreated to bed and called it a night. During the day there was a thrifty traveler mistake fare nationwide to Auckland for 350$! Y'all missed out if you didn't see / book that! Anyway--Tomorrow: Arthur's pass up to nelson. A lot of driving.