i'm a glacier girl

driving up the west coast of new zealand is beautiful. i started the day with some short waterfall hikes and kiwi hunting and with a lot of practice i finally learned how to skip stones. i even got a niner. yes it is a shame i never learned before, but now i can put it on my resume (feel free when you know you send my resume to that perfect job you heard about for me - it is still linked at the bottom). some fresh seafood at the end of the south heading road - highly recomended in the lonely planet and in the local newspaper (the road butts into fiordland national park (one tenth of nz) where i tramped the milford track a few weeks ago).

and then on to the glaciers... so two or four glaciers here on the west coast - renowned bc they meet rainforest (fyi most of the south island and stewart island are considered rainforest for 6 METERS of rain they receive (not for their tropical temperatures) and abound in ferns, tree ferns, beech trees, and other brilliantly green vegetation) and that was too many inserts and runons. two glaciers - fox and franz josef are easily accessible and you can walk up to them (mostly) and then on them (if with a tour). i have missed out on glacier walking somehow in alaska and in canada so here it was going to be for me.

i checked in, ate a cookie, and then collected my regulation boots, woolen socks and mittens, and rain coat. there were other things i could have borrowed, but i thought that would suffice and it did. on to the bus and to the same parking lot for the glacier that everyone else uses - i was a bit dissapointed.

more later.