Queenstown to Franz Josef

Arrowtown

I am sad to leave Queenstown. Such a lovely town.

We have a longer drive today to the village of Franz Josef Glacier. It’s about 5.5 hours not including any stops…. but of course we will be making lots of stops.

Our first stop is Arrowtown which is a quaint and picturesque version of Niagara on the Lake. I buy myself a pair of merino and possum gloves.

Super Possum

Possum is a lightweight but very warm and durable fibre, New Zealand is trying to eradicate possums because they are a non-native species that was introduced into the country from Australia over 100 years ago to kill off another non-native species…cute bunny rabbits. Instead, the possum endangered many of the native species of birds (including kiwis) and reptiles (like tuataras).

Australia will not take any trapped possums back because the NZ possums have evolved into a super species and they fear that if reintroduced in Australia, they will endanger Australia’s natural possum.

So everybody in NZ hates possums and turns them into gloves.

Crown Range Road

From Arrowtown we take the more scenic but more steep and windy Crown Range Road. We keep going up, up, up. John seems to revel in the turns. Click here for a video.

Driving this road, we literally are right in the mountains. They are tight up against the road.

Stops Along the Way

We stop and have lunch by the lake at the very cute town of Wanaka. Of course we stop at every scenic lookout including Lake Hawea and the other end of Lake Wanaka.

We stop at Blue Pools but they are currently closed for repair so we continue to Haast Pass Lookout.. The sign says that it is a 30 minute hike to the lookout point. We start on the path and it goes steeply up, up, up. This is not my idea of a good time so John continues to go up and I turn around and go back to the car to eat potato chips. I know, not one of my finer moments.

John’s still not back…I move on to the chocolate chip cookies.

John returns. He says the view was OK but that the whole trail was uphill to the top.

It’s 3:30pm and we still have a three hour drive to Franz Josef.

We stop at both Fantail Falls (small but pretty) and Thunder Creek Falls (larger and very pretty).

We get some stunning views of the Tasmanian Sea at Knights Point Lookout. It’s 5:10 pm and we are an hour and forty minutes from Franz Josef.

Franz Josef

Franz Josef is a very small town near the glacier with mostly accommodations, a few restaurants a couple stores and a Kiwi Rescue/ Sanctuary. We can see the glacier from our hotel. We will check it out in the morning.