There and back again - Glaciers and Mount Aspiring National Park!

From Greymouth we drove south along the west coast of New Zealand. This was the only day we had bad weather. The rain poured pretty hard, and I was a little bummed because Mount Aspiring National Park was what I was really excited to see and get in some nice hiking, but we still stopped along the way through the park for short (30 min) walks in the rain. The road that goes through the park is called the Haast Highway...our stops included Fantail Falls, Blue Pools (not pictured), and Makaroa before we called it a day.

[Rain on the GoPro ...looking at Franz Josef glacier]

[cairns in front of Fantail Falls]

[Marius adding his cairn]

[We are big fans of picnic lunches when we're on a road trip]

[soup, bread, cheese, rice crackers, hummus and coffee]

[Entering Mount Aspiring National Park]

[We were supposed to see Aoraki/Mount Cook really well from this side, but the clouds did not let us]

[Cell phone service is really spotty and often nonexistent in the national parks, so we had to stop in a bar for Marius to use the wi-fi and send in a project for school. Meanwhile, I had a beer and read a book]

[The weather cleared soon after and we found a great spot to set up camp on Lake Wanaka]

[Very windy on the lake, but we found a nice sheltered spot for the tent and the sky was clear that night for perfect stargazing]

[My favorite view]

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