I got a few minutes of sleep here and there but it was so cold, there was no way to get any actual rest. Finally the ferry landed in Picton and we went down to claim our car. Once we were out, we plotted our course to Franz Joseph in the GPS (making sure to first stop at a McDonalds to get some coffee) and were on our way. It was a 6 hour drive to Franz Joseph and since we had known that we would be wrecked from not sleeping on the ferry, we had elected to travel all day and just get it over with. We made sure that the non-driver stayed awake as well since it would have been very easy to nod off being that we were so tired. There was no radio reception in the area, so luckily I had my iPad with hundreds of songs that my good friend Te Tee had loaded onto it for us to chose from. As we drove, I still couldn't get over the fields of sheep, cows and deer. There are actual deer farms here which I've never seen in the US. It's funny to see them raised like any other farm animal. I love seeing the little lambs with their mothers; they are so damn adorable!
It was a scenic but rainy drive and when we arrived in Franz Joseph we were ready for some lunch and a nap.
We checked into our hostel called "Glow Worm Cottages" which I had picked because I thought the name was adorable. We were in a four bed ensuite, complete with its own little kitchen. We also had free wifi which means a lot to us these days. From our hostel, there was an amazing view of the snowy mountains as well as the mountains covered in rainforest which I just couldn't get over. It was so cool looking!
We got our stuff set up and then headed to the main kitchen because every evening at 6:00pm, they provided free soup! We were really excited that the soup might count as a free dinner, and scooped a large bowl of what looked like chicken soup.
Sadly, someone had used far too much pepper in the soup and although both Alyssa and I love spicy food, neither of us could eat more than two mouthfuls. It was so spicy that it burned all the way down to your stomach...not worth it. We dumped the soup and walked to the little corner grocery store. We weren't very hungry so we settled on yogurt and fruit for dinner before succumbing to our exhaustion and heading to bed. We were surprised to find that the sun still hadn't set and it was almost 10:00pm. Apparently here on the south island, the days last much longer than we had anticipated!
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