Fox Glacier & Franz Josef Glacier..

Hey guys,
                so to catch you up a bit on the last few days ( i am now in burger king where we have free wifi and with us being only 30 mins away from the Picton - where we shall get our ferry in the morning, we have time to kill)
Anyway,when you drive from Haast to Fox glacier, bear in mind that this is the last place you can get fuel for 120km so fill up before you go through the woods at Haast. As the sta cards don't work at the 24hr petrol station which is unmanned and they have NO ATM. So we had to do the 120km on a quarter of a tank !!

My last post shows you that we did infact make it and we filled up at Fox which was slightly more expensive for fuel , but note that its 20c per litre moreexpensive again at Franz so fill up at Fox. We are currentlyfilling our spaceship tank for $120 and it gets us 700 km on average so not too bad.

Anyway fox is a short walk from the car park and is really beautiful. Fox town has a lot buzzing aroundand the Kiwi sanctuary is a must here. We didnt see the kiwis but the cafe and gift shop were great and not tooexpensive.

After lunchwe moved onto Franz Josef , to climb to the highest part that you are allowed, its 1 hr 30mins round trip so not too bad and totally worth it , you see waterfalls on the way and lots of information boards. It was nice to have a walk and some fresh air after being stuck in the camper for the past fews days.

We wanted to drive through to Hanmer springs but this was too far in one night so we stopped at a little town for sausage and chips. The town was called Whataroa and was such a lovely little village. We went to the village shop which was also a cafe and got saus and chips for $12!! The eve was warm so we sat on the benches outside as they were closing. It was a post office aswell as the store. We had a great hour or so sat here it was about 25km from FJ so afterwards we had a bit of a drive.We stopped at Greymouth on the way to reefton where we planned to camp. We filled up the petrol as we had only gotten a small amount before as it was more expensive, now it was back to 2.21 again , we filled up. We then went to Mcdonalds to get a sundae and then to the supermarket called New World to get some essentials. New world seems to be a lot cheaper than Countdown and is open until 11pm. Places in Nz seem to close early ; petrol stations, supermarkets and info centre oh and restaurants!!

I bought us some toilet roll which was very cheap at 4 for $1 , although there are a few toilets around NZ and in camper sites and citues. There is never any toilet roll as i suppose they dont get inspected often. So another thing to bear in mind. We already carry hand sanitiser but its a must for the public toilets!!

After this, we drove to a campsite recommended to us on a guide bookwe picked up in Christchurch. Its the DOC ( department of conservations - the owners of the campsite) book, it states the basic to expensive sites. Basic are usually $6 pppn and you leave your money in a box at the site.

The site we stayed at was called Slab hut creek and was really badly sign posted in the dark. Its 10km from Reefton do if you see the brown Reefton sign, youve gone too far. It was a lovely small campsite witb only a few people there. We got there late and left early as we planned to sprnd the day in Hanmer springs pools.

S&L xx