Home Stretch

This is the 28th day of our trip. You might think Wendy and I would be having some repeat experiences, but no. I tossed off the phrase "new horizons every day" a while ago and, seriously, it is true. I doubt that we have described them all in this blog or you would not still be reading. Trust me. Too much to tell. And we still have three more days to go, or four, depending on how you count the day we gain traveling east to the Atlantic states and home.

You may have noticed I like signs and food. So I will add a few representative images from our day today: lunch and glacier. Lunch was a venison meat pie and an apple purchased at the Country Cafe at Makarora, between Queenstown and Fox Glacier. I chose venison because deer have become one of this region's strong commercial products following the import of deer from Scotland years ago. They became overpopulated but eventually the problem was turned to an advantage; Germany is New Zealand's best customer. Coincidentally, Wendy and I shared our sun-dappled picnic table with a fellow coach rider, a young woman from Germany who is a vegetarian. The apple was, of course, also a local product. Yum.

We reached Fox Glacier late in the day, just in time for a wizened man named Murray to drive us in his well-worn van up to the trail head for the glacier walk. Fox is a serious glacier, with a clear but steep and rocky trail up the side of a roaring river of blue gray water. It was a perfect day for our hike, not just "good" as the sign says. And yes, the other sign says "Danger -- Rockfall next 300 meters -- No stopping." We were good girls and didn't even step beyond the yellow ropes at the top of the trail so that an earnest young man from Hungary could get, in his opinion, the "very best picture" of us when we asked. It was a wonderful hike. We sweated a lot, and gloried in the immensity and beauty of New Zealand's West Coast.

Due to my phone running out of juice, I can't give you a picture of my incredible supper at The Last Kitchen down the street from our hotel in this tiny, tiny town (lamb with wild rice and sautéed vegetables, my best meal yet in New Zealand) but, trust me, it was good.