No Power, No View - Blogabond

The drive to Franz Josef took most of the day: we left at 7:30am and only arrived at 4:30pm. What scenery we could see from the bus I thought looked very like Scotland again. Again, the main difference was the trees on the hills. The weather was terrible when we arrived so we were unable to appreciate the wonderful view from the hostel I'd read about. The storm continued and turned so bad that electricity went off. Some pylons somewhere must have come down.

In the morning there was no electricity, although it had come on during the night long enough to bake me on the top bunk bed I had in the dorm. At least in Asia and South Africa they have a back-up generator or solar power for when the electricity goes down. To shower, I had to tiptoe my way through bits of shrapnel on the floor where workmen seemed to be hacking the entire surface up. After showering we couldn't even make food easily or get comfortable in the lounge because, apart from the fact it was freezing in there, workmen were sanding down a newly set concrete floor. This was another YHA place, which we had booked before swearing against them in Nelson. Now we were certain!

When the power finally came on, I hung about blogging and Joanne just watched films. The weather was awful outside and, although we were only in Franz Josef for the Glacier, there was no point in going on a trek in its direction because, even if we braved the conditions, the cloud was so low we didn't think we would see any scenery even when we were in it. It was a waste of time really. Briefly it improved and we went outside to take a photo and go to the shops to buy blank DVDs for backing up photos to. The weather quickly deteriorated and when we returned I discovered that the PC in the hostel did not have a DVD writer.

Where the Glacier is apparently

Then at 4:30pm we had to catch our bus to Fox Glacier where we would hopefully see more than we had of this one.

written by

The Happy Couple on August 26, 2009 from Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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