Hokitika to Fox Glacier in the rain April 4, 2011

Boy did it rain overnight. It actually started as we pulled into Hokitika last night. It is too bad, because this looks like a nice beach town. We woke up to more rain, but by the time we needed to load up the car, it had slowed considerably. We decided to park in town and walk around a bit. We went to the Jade Factory (this is the jade capital of NZ) to peruse the wares and then strolled down the street to check out the glass blowing store. We saw very nice items in each place. Also of interest was the Possum Store. Garments are made of possum fur and wool. They are beautiful, soft and expensive. We also checked out the Sock Machine Museum and Store. That is a niche interest but they had great socks and a room full of machines with a video running explaining how they worked.

The rain was still coming down so we headed south to the Glaciers. The road was not quite a hilly and windy as yesterday, but it had its moments. There wasn't much traffic so we made pretty good time. We got to Franz Josef Glacier in time for lunch, and then we drove to the glacier and walked close to it but not to the face. On our way back to the car park we hiked up another trail that gave us a great view of the glacier and the valley.

I am still collecting pictures of the various camper vans. The one that intrigued me was Wicked. Each van is named after a rock group. The one we saw today was Spinal Tap; I would not have known that if Mike had not clued me in. Then there is the Hippie Camper. Love seeing them.