Tuesday, April 21st, was our journey from southern to mid south island. We packed up our rental Nissan Sunny and departed Te Anau at about 8:20am. As I sometimes have trouble waking up, (I slept through a fire alarm at Cairns Student Lodge last week) Danika has graciously accepted the role as my personal alarm clock, shaking my foot perpetually until I’m finally annoyed enough to get up. Anyway, according to Google the trip was supposed to take around 6 ½ hours give or take. However after managing to go out of our way along a highway we could have avoided, stopping for lunch, gas, and of course, pictures, we managed to arrive in Franz Josef around 4:30-5:00pm, about 1 ½ later than I thought. It was another amazing drive though. While we didn’t drive through anymore mountains, we drove up and around several, as well as right along the Tasman Sea for about 15km. It’s very interesting; almost every bridge we’ve crossed on the south island has been only one-lane, with a semi-confusing system of a yielding to a particular direction. I’m still waiting for an unintentional game of chicken to occur on one of these bridges when someone forgets to yield.
After we arrived in Franz Josef we checked into our hostel which is quite nice for being less than $15 USD per night. We walked around Franz Josef, which appears to be entirely a tiny tourist town with hostels, motels, small shops, and all the glacier guided tour central bases. Speaking of which, Danika and I leave at 8:45am for our half-day hike on glacier. The tour company we’re going through gives us gear, so we get those cool icepick boots, but I think we would have splurged and gone with the “adventure” tour we could have the helicopter drop us off further up on the glacier and climbed vertically up on the glacier with those picks you see them use on the Discovery Channel, but that’s for another day.
After our short walk around town we headed back for complementary vegetable soup as well as the sandwiches we brought with us for supper. We then attempted to use the internet, which is treated as some sort of precious metal in the Oceania regions I’ve been in. The big debacle behind all this is my registration for classes next semester back home at Iowa. I am fortunate enough to register early relative to most third-year students and am supposed to register at 8am on Tuesday, April 21st, Iowa time. However over here in the future I actually register a whole 17 hours ahead at 1am on Wednesday, April 22nd. I figured this problem would be solved by using the computers the hostel has, but for some reason the internet gods hate me and won’t let me use Iowa’s website to register. Thus ensued a mad scramble around the area in search of someplace that would not only let me use their internet, but let my use it at one in the morning. I tried an internet cafe, hoping they would let me use their wireless after hours, but they don’t even use wireless. I then was able to convince the woman who runs the Franz Josef Terrace Motel across the street from my hostel to let me purchase their wireless internet. I then went back to the internet cafe where Danika was now using their internet to explain my situation with me, however I walked in with my laptop in my hand and left with my laptop in my hand only to get accused by one of the workers for stealing their internet. Luckily the manager had seen me only talking to Danika and not using their precious internet (I could understand the clerk’s confusion though, who the hell walks into an internet cafe and says, “Oh, I’m not using the computer, I’m just here to talk to my girlfriend...”)
Crisis averted, I am now sitting in the kitchen/internet kiosk/living room of hostel at 10pm which is actually surprisingly dead for being full of backpackers. I’m finishing up this blog and then it’s on to my Australian History powerpoint presentation on Australian Federation (becoming an autonomous English commonwealth) and its pros/cons, personally I’m usually a fan of a self-standing government, but that’s neither here nor there. Basically I’m waiting it out for the next three hours so I can register, especially since I’m trying to get into an Abnormal Psychology class that has filled up before I could register the past two years. Fortunately for me, a young European couple took pitty on me and gave me the rest of their chips (fries) they were having for a late supper. In the spirit of not letting food go to waste, I was accepted their offer, unfortunately I’m left with cleaning my keyboard of my greasy paws. It’s probably best I get started on my powerpoint, that’s all I know...
Cheers,
Kevin
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