Go West Young Man!

On Tuesday, after our whale watching excursion, we began heading west - our main destination being the village of Franz Joseph and its glacier of the same name. On the way we stayed over in Springfield (see earlier post re digs). The next morning after some instant coffee (its either instant or freaking $4 gourmet espresso in this blasted place), we tackle the imposing Southern Alps. The Southern Alps run right through the NZ South Island and unless you go around the coastline you've gotta cross them to get from the east to the west or visa versa. Basically you can only make the cross over at a very few limited number of locations and Arthur's Pass is one. From the outset we realize that Patch is not in her element in mountainous terrain. In fact, I believe Patch is strictly a coastal vehicle, for she kicks into overdrive at even a molehill. Plus we realize after about 20 minutes of driving that we had less than a quarter tank of gas. We stopped to ask some locals outside at a cabin if we should turn back and -in true Kiwi fashion -- they said "You might make it. No-worries, just take it nice at easy and flag down a yellow infrastructure vehicle if you run out." An hour later, with Patch on "E", we pulled into the single gas pump in Arthur's Pass village. It was a beautiful drive even though I was a bit distracted by our fuel situation.

Late that night (around 7 pm) we made it into Franz Joseph Village. We stayed in a decent but not spectacular room at the Glow Worm Cottages (no Nascar posters at least) and, after settling in, checked out the real glow worms. In certain areas of NZ there are these little creatures (larva of a mothlike animal) that glow at night in order to attract insects into their sticky tentacles for a snack. Glowworms are sensitive to noise and light and apparrently only congregate in moist areas (caves or dark stream valleys). The front desk person at the Glowworm gave us a tiny wind up flashlight that wasn't worth crap and we set off into the pitch black night at a trail where she said they'd be. It was a little strange to hike in the dark but after about 20 minutes of walking we turned off out lights and there they were, like little stationary lightening bugs everywhere. It was neat.