Now in Greymouth

Today is Wednesday (or Tuesday) the 18th. November of the year of our lord of 2009 or so. I don’t know the exact day because I don’t keep track of the days.

I’ll start with yesterday.
We were at the Fox Glacier, mid western Southern Island.
Glaciers look more or less the same.
But still they are different and, since we don’t have a glacier at home, it’s always exciting to see one and look at it.
We saw a big glacier, some 20 years ago, in northern Pakistan near the Rakaposhi mountain, even walked on that glacier and it was awesome.
We saw glaciers in north west British Columbia (the southern part of Alaska near Stewart; three or four in a row) and we saw glaciers in the Rockies, like Edith Clavell (she was a sort of Canadian Florence Nightingale, shot by the Germans during the first world war somewhere in Flanders) and, well, this was beautiful again.

Today we were at Franz Josef (as I thought yesterday the late Emperor Franz Jozef of Austria), a little town called after the glacier next to this town.
Today the weather was fantastic. No clouds (they say here “clieds” or something like that – the New Zealanders speak a language which I only
can follow with difficulty I must admit, although I think I speak or at least understand English rather well ) and we had consequently lots of sun.

The glacier (Franz Josef) looked very good (as good as a glacier can look) and we had fun seeing the sites.

After visiting this glacier we went north to Hokitika where we lunched somewhere on the coast (with a sea view).
Those names here in New Zealand; they are so different that I can’t remember most of them (Korsakov plays a role maybe too).

We visited the gold town Ross and we saw real gold nuggets.
That’s something totally different from Chicken Nuggets and the latter taste much better.
In Ross they are still digging for gold nowadays.
After Ross we arrived in the city of Greymouth (on the mouth of the river Grey). The camping is OK and we will stay here for the night.
Tomorrow we will head north.


This evening/night we had dinner together with a Belgian couple whom we met already 4 or 5 times during our trip trough the southern part of New Zealand. Almost every 2nd day we meet them at some camping and it is nice to have conversations about:
- the federalization of Belgium
- “De Syphon” in Damme
- the weather in New Zealand
- Buys Ballot’s law (the wind should come from the east but comes from
the west)
- beer
- world politics (Bush and Obama)
- our kids and grandchildren
- food
- etc.

Driving around here in New Zealand means seeing lots and lots of sheep.
For people who love sheep, this must really be heaven (I am sure).

Greetings from Greymouth (New Zealand).
And till the next time.