No more wearing hats in the Duke

Blog Post 9

This post will be a long one, as it was a LONG day for us. 

Forgot about one major stop we made yesterday when crossing Arthur's Pass - we went on a hike to a waterfall called Devil's Punchbowl.  It is the kind of waterfall you expect to see in Hawaii - really tall, cascading, several layers - worth the hike, although it didn't look devilish and there was no pool or punchbowl.  No clue how these folks name things.  

Back to today… as mentioned earlier, we had a fancy dining experience in McDonalds for breakfast.  We are not huge fast-foodies normally, but free Wi-Fi (any Wi-Fi) and good coffee were pretty hard to find in Greymouth while waiting for our laundry to dry.

Laundry - they had washers and dryers at the "holiday park" (campground) we stayed at a few days ago, but the dryers were more decorative than functional.  After hanging our clothes around Duke for two days and having them still not dry (couldn't find a laundromat anywhere), we finally found one in Greymouth.  This "laundromat" was actually a small hut with four stackable washers and dryers.  That's it.  No people, no room - just a 5x8 hut with washers and dryers.  $5 to dry for 25 minutes.  It did the trick.  No more skivvies hanging from the rearview mirror. We're starting to class up the joint.

From Greymouth, we headed South to the Glacier area - about a 2 1/2 hour drive.  The West side of the south island gets a lot more rain and there is a noticeable difference in the terrain - so much more green.  Cows and sheep look a lot happier, too.  BTW, there are sheep everywhere.  We actually also started seeing water in some of the rivers!

We decided to take a side excursion en route to a place called Hotatiki Gorge (sp??) that was supposedly an otherworldly color of blue from glacial runoff.  Totally worth it.  Short hike - maybe 2-3k (we speak in kilometers now) round trip, over a rope bridge across a river that was the brightest blue I've ever seen.  The guidebook said this was the place where the pictures make other people jealous - we agree.

After the gorge hike, we continued South to Franz Joseph Glacier and Fox Glacier - sadly, these glaciers have been melting at such a rapid rate, it is hard to actually get close enough to be overwhelmed by them.  We decided that the better view was at Fox Glacier, so we went there.  After another hike, plus a 1/2k hike straight uphill, we did get a glimpse of the glacier from about 200m away (think two football fields).  Cool to see, but also sad.  There are signs along the route showing where the glacier was 200 years ago, 80 years ago, and even 5 years ago.  Suffice it to say, the Fox glacier is disappearing very quickly.

We also hiked to a lake (Lake Mathieson) where you can take an absolutely perfect mirror picture of Mt. Cook.  In true fashion, the weather did not cooperate and we could not see Mt. Cook (clouds) and the wind kicked up so the lake was too rippled.  Still a pretty hike through a tropical rain forest.

With all of our side excursions, we were behind schedule (yes, I had us on a tight vacation schedule) and we still had about a 3-4 hour drive to get to our next overnight spot.  Just after we left Fox Glacier, we lost all cell service and all GPS signal - it is desolate out here!  But, with admirable navigational skills and a healthy dose of luck we had a pretty good idea of which way to head, there is exactly one road in New Zealand. 

Our halfway point was a town called Haast - the biggest town we would see for the rest of the day.  We got there around 7pm and planned to gas up and make dinner before finishing the last 90k to Wanaka.  We pull into the "last gas station for next 88k" and it was closed.  They had a 24-hour self-service machine that you could put your credit card in and pre-pay for gas.  Understand that their gas stations in the boonies do not have a "pay at the pump" option that we take for granted in the US.  You always pay inside.  This machine let you pre pay, somehow.  Of course, it didn't take US credit cards because it requires a PIN, which we don't have on our credit cards.  We tried bank cards, multiple credit cards, swearing, crying, yelling, etc.  None of it worked.  We debated making a run for it - we showed enough fuel to get us 140k, but running out of gas at night, with no phone, on these crazy twisty turny two lane roads was not appealing.  We debated just parking and staying overnight, but that meant missing bungy jumping in the morning.  We wavered back and forth and ultimately agreed to sit in the gas station waiting for another customer to show up.  No one showed.  Finally, Damon walked up the road to a restaurant that was open (only thing around) and got a super nice lady to come to the gas station and use her credit card to charge gas for us - we gave her cash.  We hugged.  We cried tears of joy. We hugged again. And then we were on our way.  Stupid Americans.

We drove for another hour or so - tried to get in the last bit of daylight (driving these roads in the dark is scary as sh*t for the passenger and I'm sure for the driver, too) before stopping next to a river to make a lovely chicken dinner.  Duke rocks!  Pulled into our campground around 10:30 pm and crashed hard.  Well, I did.  Damon apparently did not sleep all night in anticipation of the upcoming jump.

Other tidbits - there are hitchhikers everywhere - we haven't picked anyone up yet.  I'm sure we would get the crazy killer.  The Duke hit a bird yesterday (sorry PETA).  We also swerved to miss a rabbit and almost went off the road - which is probably why the bird had to go.  There is a lot of road kill out here… critters running amok.

One final note - why the title of this post?  So, Damon and I can both stand up at full height inside Duke.  To get to the front seats, you have to duck hit your head on the wall that comes down to create a storage space above the front seats.  I have been wearing a baseball hat most of the time for the past few days, which limits my upward vision.  I have hit my head so many times there is actually a permanent bruise and a dent on the top of my head (aggravated by nearly knocking myself out on a cave wall in the flashlight-less cave walk).  Lots of swearing going on inside the Duke.  Damon keeps yelling at me "no hats in the Duke" so maybe I will see the ceiling and stop hitting my head.  Joke is on him - I smacked my head with my hat off, too.  He nailed his head pretty good yesterday, too.  He had a hat on.  Ha!