Midlife Ascent: THE TRIP - WEEK 6,7,8,9

Four out of four on the flight front. On time and got the legroom seat again. Will my luck hold on the 12 hr flight to LA? Who knows and frankly my dears, I don't give a ****, as I am going to be busy enjoying NZ.

Young McDuck helped to plan my activities as we spent the night in a Christchurch hotel, refreshing ourselves before picking up the Camper Van the next morning.

Picking up the van was painless and because the depot was right on the edge of town and luckily on the very road I wanted, there was no pressure getting used to driving it. It struck me as I drove away on the left side of the road, that Thailand, Australia and NZ are all the right (left being right you understand!) way round. I am watching out for USA visitors who will find the right way wrong as they are used to the wrong way on the right and as all the vans are manual gear shift, they must be loving it!! No doubt, they will be watching out for me when I get to LA, as I will be driving on the right, wrong w...... oh forget it!!

Views started quietly then slowly but surely, started to get bigger and better.

They may drive on the left but there are some other road rules to watch out for. Like who has the right of way at the very many single track bridges. Worked that out with the help of white and red arrow signs. However, when it comes to sharing bridges with trains!!!! And what if one comes the other direction to me?... I have not even attempted to reverse this thing yet. So far two like this safely traversed!

Think I may have taken too much of a drive for the first day as I was tired when I arrived in the invitingly named Greymouth for my initial sleep in the van. Found a supermarket and stocked up with the essentials which included, 'chips and dips' which someone has got me hooked on and NZ lamb steaks for dinner, nice.

Next morning, after a good sleep, I set off on a successful mission to find the first NZ geocache of the trip, more on caches later. After that I headed north to visit the famouse 'Pancake Rocks'. As more coastal views came and went, I began to see some similarities with the Great Ocean Road of last week.

As I arrived at the rocks, there was a light drizzle in the air, hmmm. Very impressive they were even if the water spouting blow holes were not working today, think the tide was a bit out, oh well next time eh?

This is evidence of my third geocache attempt of the day. For the second one, I am making half a claim! I got a photo of the site from inside the back of the van, as I had waited about 15 mins for the torrential rain to stop long enough to nip out and find the container! The drizzle had developed a bit.

Next over night was in Franz Joseph, famed for its glacier. I had heard many times about the spectacular flights that are available to see two glaciers and the summit of Mt Cook. Below was the scene that evening, no flights! In the morning I tried for the 9am, 10 & 11am flights all with the same result sadly, no flights. There will be another chance later when I visit Mt Cook from the other side, they fly from there as well.

Never mind, I thought, if I cant see them from above I'll see them from below. The rain had stopped so I elected to take one of the longer walks through the jungle to one of the more spectacular view points.

Oh, I was bullish this morning. I extended the walk for about another 20 mins, on to a wonderfull bridge over thundering water straight from the glaciers base. That would account for the ice which you can see on the rocks. For the record, there was a warning sign on the bridge "Max 5 People". I was the only one on there and would not have been at all happy if another four got on!

It rained on the way back, all the way back, heavy rain as you can tell! Thank goodness for a camper van and dry clothes. Would have not been so funny if I were in a car.