The sand flies had taken heavy losses the previous evening, however such is their devilish nature that they re-grouped and under the cover of darkness formed a mass assault on the enema and its occupants. At that point they discovered that we had played our trump card in shutting all the windows. Smug in our airtight metal and glass coffin we watched them swarm at the windows, buzzing in frustration at being thwarted.
Unfortunately at around 5am we overheated and ran out of oxygen. In a sleepy, oxygen starved haze I opened a side window with disastrous consequences...
Come the morning Bob was decorated with 8 new bites, and I awoke to watch one of the critters feasting on my shoulder. It was his last meal. Both exhibiting odd Tourette like symptoms we got on the road asap.
We soon arrived in Franz-Josef Glacier village and after a whizz through the I-site, and the realisation that there was unlikely to be much difference between this glacier and the European glaciers we were both familiar with, we opted to walk ourselves to the terminal face rather than spending a fortune on a helicopter trip to the top.
The setting was very impressive, emerging from temperate forest to see the glacier looming over us from high up the valley. It's rate of retreat was quite astonishing, as was the concept of the tectonic activity causing the mountains to 'grow' annually by 20-60mm.
After coffee and a wifi catch up in town we headed to the next valley down and the Fox glacier which was set amongst impressive sheer rock walls with a crystal clear lake at the base of the path. Slightly frustrated with continually overtaking large ageing yanks dressed in beige, we headed south, leaving the glaciers to the bus loads of wrinkles who continued to arrive.
After at least a million single track bridges we stopped for lunch amongst the driftwood at Bruce Bay. It was only at this point that I realised we were about to enter NZ's playground and Bob had a lot of research to do!
Our surroundings developed from steep forested valleys to Mediterranean style coastline alongside the sea as we climbed up the cliffs to the spectacular Knights Point look out. The drive continued South on the desperate hunt for a whitebait fritter before we left the coast, but sadly we soon arrived at Haast. There were approximately 8 structures in this diminutive township, of which 4 advertised the most delicious whitebait fritters in town, all 4 were also closed...
We turned inland following the bank of an immense estuary filled with smooth stones and lined with blue rivulets of melt water. The surroundings turned back to steep sided forest with towering peaks way above us as we climbed, following various tributaries to and through the Gates of Haast. Again our first choice of campsite did not get our trade as we leapt back into the Enema battling sand flies after just a short walk around to assess the composting toilets...
Campermate gave us several other possibilities on the route South so we pushed on. In spite of it being late in the day we pulled in at the layby signing the Blue Pools a 30minute walk away, as I had read that they were worth a visit. They most certainly were, a winding track through ancient mossy woodland and malodorous upside down trees brought us to a swing bridge crossing an impossibly blue river. 200m further on, a tributary tumbled down to join it and they formed the most crystal clear, purest blue, deep pool I have ever seen. You could see every detail of the years of swirling erosion on the huge boulders which sat at the bottom of the icy water from the swing bridge above it, and in the winter apparently salmon could be seen heading up river to spawn.
We trotted back to the car very pleased with our third walk of the day and with the sun dropping to our right we eventually arrived at Boundary Bay DOC campsite. Although relatively busy it was cheap and the location was stunning on a small wooded spit extending into lake Wanaka.
As the sun set we ate tortellini with tomato sauce, fried courgette and aubergine, snuggled in the front of the enema. As routine now dictates we then read our books over a cup of tea which had boiled for the allotted 3 minutes to reduce the risk of giardia...
As more groups crammed into the small spit, with little regard for personal space or taste in music, we turned in and I successfully swatted all of the enema's sand flies with my book. The morning will tell us whether it really was all of them...