Out of the we(s)t coast

Friday 28th February
Well thank goodness we walked to the Franz Josef Glacier yesterday because we certainly wouldn’t have done it today; we woke to heavy rain. This was our biggest driving day - four and a half hours to Queenstown so we packed up nice and early and drove half an hour south to the village of Fox Glacier for breakfast in a great wee café. The rain continued to be torrential as we drove towards the coast - the rivers we crossed were high and churning, and waterfalls crashed down rockfaces beside the road. We turned south at Bruce Beach as the rain went on battering down. It wasn’t until we approached Wanaka in the afternoon that the sun came out and weirdly we were soon strolling about the village of Wanaka in glorious sunshine as if the rain had been in a different universe! It was only an hour from there to Queenstown and the air bnb that Jamie had booked for us. It was really nice to be back here in summer and we recognised lots of bars and restaurants that we had visited in 2017. The town was busy with summer tourists and we went down to the front where we had dinner beside the lake, a most picturesque setting. The lake was an amazing turquoise blue.