We all hopped onto the bus in the morning and took a beautiful drive south along the west coast of the South Island. We first stopped at a famous Bushmen Centre full of hilarious signage…a truly trailer park spectacular! The Centre does a great job at giving insight into how people make a living on the coast with helicopter deer recovery, old timber-milling techniques and possum trapping. Beware at the end of the tour you will be encouraged to purchase a Possum Pie at the cafe (indeed made of this Kiwi Roadkill).
We spent the next two days in the small tourist town of Franz Josef, home to one of the worlds most famous glaciers. I had already visited the largest continental glacier in the world in Argentina in the small town of El Calafate so did not feel the need to spend over 200 USD to climb up this particular hunk of ice. Thank God I wasn’t hell bent on the excursion as I came down with a 24 hour bug and found myself exhausted and crippled in my bed. The following day after slowly gaining the strength to fall out of bed I hitchhiked to the base of the glacier and took a few scenic walking trails to take a few photographs of the famous 12 km long Kiwi Ice Cube.
