Waking up on the side of a cliff is one thing, but waking up surrounded by tourists out all windows on the side of a cliff? Now thats an experience. We opted to get out of that odd scenario by just hitting the road. Low and behold, we were less than 25 minutes from Wanaka - which explains why when we were there last the grocery store and town was crawling with people all in their ski gear. Makes sense now...
So back into Wanaka we ventured seeking after a good breakfast. As always, we really just stopped at the first place we saw that had a decent menu, a decent crowd and an open table. The Alchemy seemed like your local hot spot for coffee but we were hungry. A nearby eater had a mixed plate of food called the "local plate" which consisted of eggs, sausage, baked beans, mushrooms, potato puffs and bacon and I immediately said yes. The Auburn game was on but we only had Andrew's phone to watch the score updates so that is what we did at breakfast.
A squad of snowboarders wandered in not long after we had gotten our food and we all felt a bit of familiarity to them. We carried on eating until out of nowhere Andrew proclaims "I knew it!" and shows us his phone -- one of the girls from that group eating nearby was Chloe Kim! The 17 year old American olympic gold medalist! How cool!? I had my back to her so I did not take any stalker photos but you'll just have to believe me.
We had a longish drive up to our next stop so we decided to head along in the RV. For the first time in the 11 days of this trip, we got a bit of ugly, gray, rainy weather. It wasn't an issue since we were driving, but we had wanted to stop at the Blue Pools to do a polar bear plunge into the water. Once we got to the parking lot for the area about an hour north of Wanaka, we sat in the RV looking out at both the rain and the sign that said "30 minute walk to pools" and make an executive decision to pass on this adventure. Nobody was feeling the urge to spend so much time cold and wet. So we carried on.
Lucky for us, there were several cool falls with short walks along the way like Fantail Falls and then finally hit the coast and stopped at Knight's Point that looked out over the Tasman Sea. We continued along the winding coastal mountain road for another hour until landing in the small town of Fox. When we got to Fox, we did a little counter hopping around the different helicopter hike locations trying to get the best deal. Undecided, we went over to grab a late lunch at Cook Saddle to discuss and breakdown what a later heli-hike would mean for the last few days of our trip.
Cook Saddle had a nice selection of food - I wasn't super hungry (and really wanted cobbler) so I just split chowder and fish and chips with Andrew -- and then got cobbler and did not share. We decided on a 11:30AM heli-hike up to Fox Glacier and went and booked it with the tour company and then went off to do a little exploring.
Looking for a well know swing bridge, we ended up at the end of a glacier lookout road that had a couple lakes at the bottom. Before I knew it, the boys were scurrying down the hillside in towels and went right in the water one at a time, unable to breath on the way out. Emily was filming and didn't catch all of round one so she nicely asked them to plunge back in again. Poor guys! But they did it! I was not about the peer pressure life and decided I would wait until a non-rainy day.
On the way back we found the swing bridge and then went to hang out at the RV until it got a little darker so we could go see the glowworms. So my god parents, the Walkers, had come over to my house in St. Louis for dinner and brought all sorts of maps and reading materials before I left for Hawaii. They were excited about my trip and knew I didn't have a ton of control over the itinerary but told me that I HAD to see the glow worms. Then suddenly - we found a place by not even trying!
We wandered the Minnehaha glow worm trail with head lamps and flashlights until we found the magical little creatures. The glowworms up close look like tiny dangling chandeliers that wiggle when you put a light on them. But without any light, they look like thousands of little stars in the trees and between rocks. They are super cool! We stopped to attempt a few photos but per usual the boys went up ahead leaving Emily and I to find our way back to the RV in the dark.
Excited to have checked that off my list (thanks Walkers!), we headed towards camp for the night which was down a pretty secluded road for 30 minutes or so that ended at the beach! There were several other RVs at the Gillespie Beach Camp Site when we arrived but it wasn't an issue as it was raining and we weren't setting up any camp outside. Walking to the bathroom, I was startled by a random sheep or two coming out of the brush. In most camping situations you think bears or raccoons or deer but nope -- just sheep.
Emily made dinner, per usual (what an angel), of pasta and garlic bread, while the rest of us got into a heated dual of gin. This is not a group where anyone likes losing card games. Knowing we had another full day ahead, we called it a somewhat early night excited for our helicopter tomorrow!
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