Honeymooning around the world: Wanaka, Glaciers and a bit of West coast with the #¤*@%§! sandflies!

When we came in the evening from Tekapo to Wanaka, we knew that we probably would have to sleep in the car because we had thought we would stay in Tekapo. In Tekapo the situation was the same, no accommodation under 100€. We drove close to Lake Hawea where we had our next accommodation. We found a nice spot next to Havea lake away from the town. Markus fixed our mosquito net to one car window so we would get fresh air. It was a quite warm night, 20c. We had a nice view over the lake but it was a trap! In the morning after our breakfast, we brushed our teeth and spitted out from the car. We had the door open for about 10 sec and we were immediately attacked. We got about 40 sandflies inside the car! A small panic started to grow! We moved the car away from the grass, jumped out and sprayed the car from the inside. We waited for a while outside but it was quite challenging because of the million sandflies. When we had "won" the fight with just minor injuries (just few bites) we headed to our next place where we had a bed!

Our equipment for the night in the car 😜

We had a nice looking lake next to us

We knew we were early at the hostel, but we had had good luck in most of the places and been able to check in early or at least use the kitchen etc. Not this time. We tried to check in to Hawea Backpackers but the man at the front desk just laughed: "Are you serious? You are four hours early! We are fully booked, come back at 12! Check in is at 12." Well thank you for your professional answer! Probably first time they were fully booked and now they were so proud! 😜 Well, then we drove to Wanaka and had coffee and wrote our blog. This was a rainy day! Literally! It was raining and gusty wind and it felt really cold and grey. Around noon, we went back and then they told us that our room might not be ready because they're fully booked. We told her what happened in the morning and that after such behavior we expect that we can check in at 12 as the man told us "nicely". The woman checked for a key but probably the key was missing because suddenly she said we are going to get a private room. What? We thought they were fully booked! But this is more than welcome. We had booked beds in a 4 bed dorm but now we got for the same price a private room! 😄

A rainy day, good for planning Indonesia and writing our blog

Our "lovely" room

As mentioned, it was a rainy day so we didn't do that much that day. Just went to the doctor when Edda's nail came off from her big toe. It got black in Cabanaconde, Peru, when we did the Colcacanyon hike. It looked like it had started to grow under the skin so we thought it would be good to show it while we were in NZ. Luckily everything was as it should! The rest of the day we just planned a bit of our trip to Indonesia and booked the rest of our NZ accommodations. We had slept enough in the car so we wanted to ensure a bed for the rest of our stay in NZ.

The next morning we had breakfast and left to Puzzling World. It is a mind trick fun park. First we walked trough the "exhibition" with different mind tricking rooms and things. That didn't take too long and then it was time for the maze. It is a quite big maze with bridges as well. It can be really frustrating to walk around without finding your way. 😂 There are four towers that have to be visited. The easier maze is just to find them and the in the more difficult one has to find them in a specific order. We went for the easier one. It took us 30 minutes to find all the four towers and another 30 min to find the way out 😈 It was a fun place! If you are around Wanaka you should definitely go there!

We found all four towers 😉

Gravity rooms were fun!

Edda's favorite moment! 😉 The ginger ice cream was super spicy! Yammy!

It In the morning we saw that the weather was quite nice for a drive to Franz Josef Glacier (Glacier Country). We had checked that there would be few stops on the way. What? Few stops? At one point we stopped every 5 minutes to see something and it took us around 5 hours to get only to Haast (90km/1,5h from Wanaka) 😂 But there were so many beautiful places to see and the weather was sunny and warm. During our stops we noticed that we had arrived to the West Coast...We could actually feel it, oh, the so lovely sandflies! There were on almost every stop around 1 million sandflies waiting with their forks and knives for us to step out of our car so they could feast on us. We managed somehow fight and survive the attacks. We finally arrived to Franz Josef around 6.30pm and we had started around 10am from Wanaka. The trip should last about three hours without stops. 😄

We have seen piles of stones made by others, so we wanted to make our own pile. 😉

Few photos from Blue Pools

Crystal-clear water

We stopped at Bruce's Bay to grab a coffee. People had went to the beach and picked white stones and wrote notes on them. A nice pile already! 😊

We stayed at Chateau Franz Backpackers. It was a relatively big hostel but it was quite clean and quiet and actually quite cozy. The first evening we just cooked something and went to bed. We had booked beds from a 4 bed dorm for three nights, luckily! The first full day was rainy and really cloudy so we couldn't see any mountains. It had been a pity to go to the glaciers in a such weather. We decided to check them the following day. We saw that there was a "tunnel" track close to our hostel, perfect on a cloudy day! 😉 It was a nice walk in the rainforest and in the end there was a ~1.7m x 1.5m tunnel in to the mountain. There was water on the floor so either one got wet shoes or then one had to use flip flops. Markus had taken his flip flops with him. Edda found the tunnel a bit too narrow and dark so she stayed and waited while Markus got wet and cold feet in the tunnel. Actually it was not cold, it was freezing! The water came to the tunnel from the wall and ground. It was probably melted ice from the mountains. The tunnel was maybe 400-500m long and Markus found some glow worms there. It took a long time before Markus could feel his toes after the cold water.

Markus ready to explore the tunnel

Fresh freezing water coming to the tunnel through the wall

Glow worms in the dark

When we woke up the next day we checked through the curtains, and yes! It was a sunny day! We had a quick breakfast and headed first to Franz Josef Glacier. It was a few hour walk (8-9km) return. It was quite different from the last time Markus was here. The Glacier has melted a lot and retreated during the years maybe about 300-400 meters. The same was at Fox Glacier where we went after we visited Peter's Pool and Lake Matheson. From Matheson we had really beautiful views! Check the pictures! Another thing at the Glaciers was that if one wanted to get on the Glacier, the only safe way was to go with a helicopter and pay around 400 NZD. Crazy! 😮 In the evening we made dinner at our hostel and met a nice couple from Sweden, Linnea and Mattias. Then it was again time to pack our bags for the next day, and prepare for going to Punakaiki through few other places.