Be Here By Morning: 2 Glaciers and a winner in Blackball...

Fresh (hot) Dutch Apple Pie from the Wanaka Farmer's Market (yes it is apple season here right now)

Random picture perhaps, but this might be a chestnut tree (that was growing in the parking lot of our hotel)

We finally left Wanaka on Saturday. We managed to hit their farmer's market on the way out of town and it really summed up Wanaka for us. While there aren't many people in Wanaka (7,500) they do a great job of covering all the bases...and then some. Of the 7 stands at that farmer's market, there were fresh cupcakes, face painting ;), beautiful organic produce, fresh (as in a couple hours and hot) bread, organic/free range eggs/meat, organic honey, fresh dutch apple pie (by the slice or whole), and more organic fruit. Not bad for the end of the season!

Our "goal" was to make it to Blackball which is a hole-in-the-wall-type town, north east of Greymouth or about 500km away from our starting place in Wanaka. "Why Blackball?!" was later asked to us about 5 times throughout the day...truth of the matter was our friend Kashi had told us they had delicious, humble food in a hole in the wall type tavern where it "looked like a bunch of Harley folks might be". The drive that day was epic. Aside from the beautiful terrain, the weather added a whole new dimension. Within an hour of leaving Wanaka, which is high desert mix of Colorado and Wyoming, we were passing through tropical areas with glaciers.

The East side of Lake Wanaka on our way out of town...

Within an hour of departure, the weather and terrain dramatically changed!

The clouds and weather made for great scenery...

The weather turned even a bit rainier and stormy and, well, a bit romantic! We drove past Fox Glacier, then Franz Josef Glacier...serene and beautiful. We drove up to the trail head of both glaciers and they have markers on the road labeling, "glacier was here in 1750", then a bit up the road, "glacier was here in 1935", then the glacier trail head to the glacier. Just observing the facts and trying to refrain from any global warming doom and gloom, the fact is that the distance between 1750 and 1935 was the same distance as from 1935 to now. Draw your own conclusions (or not), but those were the facts (for those glaciers).

Almost looked like the floating islands from Avatar...

Some neat bridges over the glacial gorges...

Fox Glacier, in the rain!

We continued north and rolled into Blackball at about 6pm. There is one restaurant/tavern called Formerly the Blackball Hilton and this is the one Kashi had recommended.

Formerly the Blackball Hilton was worthy...of dinner and a good night's rest!

The building is 100 years old this year and very special. The name of it had to be changed from the Blackball Hilton as some Hilton folks in the US had a problem with it, so the owners fixed it by adding the "formerly" at the beginning. The food, which was reason for our detour, was fantastic. We had a Thai dish and a curry dish that was unpretentious and simple and amazing. They had rooms open upstairs, so we treated ourselves to not camping for the night (good call as the rains continued). The room came with a great breakfast the next morning so we were well fueled for another long (300km) day/drive to Nelson. (Zeph has been doing all the driving thus far and I am indebted to him as it has been really nice to take in the scenery and take pictures however I am well aware I am going to have to repay him soon and drive LOTS!)

Technically speaking, is a one way bridge still called a one way bridge if there is an active train track going down the center of the one way road?

So happy this was not the two of us riding through glacial passes in the rain!

We have had a mountain biking guidebook, written by the Kennett brothers, who know there way around New Zealand. We found a great trail in Nelson and were (really) excited to get on the road to enjoy it sooner rather than later. We rolled into Nelson (and a campsite right by the trail head) and went for our ride...only to find one trail closed after another. Such disappointment! They were either closed for logging or for for spraying or for someone baking banana bread....(kidding, we could only be so lucky!) This might be the point where we refrain from explaining that in certain parts they spray a poison to kill the possums because there are SO many. While everything seems to grow really well and really fast in New Zealand, so do things that get a little out of control, such as their rabbits (really- they destroy many farmers' land) and possums...both seem to outnumber the sheep. New item on our list of where we live...no spraying anywhere nearby!

After being somewhat defeated by the lack of open trails in Nelson, we took Graeme's advice and went for a nice drive down the coast to Takaka. Takaka is known for its "Bohemian" culture, or as some in California might relate better to, a "Big Sur" type culture. It was a little hippy, very laid back, and quite beautiful, located on Golden Bay, which is on the northern tip of the southern island. We had an amazing lunch at a cafe called the Wholemeal Cafe. The food was light and fresh and perfect. It was quite a drive to get to Takaka as there was a windy climb of a road, consisting of a good 20 miles (up and another 20 miles down) which was impressive as we are quite sure the entire mountain was solid black marble.