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Lake Paringa's sandfly infestation meant an early start, and by about 8:30 we were on the road, headed towards the glaciers.
We stopped off on the way to get coffee from a salmon farm, arriving just before a coach-load of tourists. Not sure why tourists would go to a salmon farm, but we're learning that just about everything can be turned into a tourist spot in this country.
Then carried on north to Fox glacier, where we did a short walk up to the glacier face. We picked up two French hitch hikers from Fox, although we couldnt take them beyond the next township: Franz Josef. We went to find out about the options for seeing the glacier there. We also had a car park picnic at the i-site! The weather seemed to be turning, so we decided against a helicopter ride, which might have been fun, but pretty carbon-intensive. In the end we just opted for a similar short walk, going to Sentinel Rock for a high view of the glacier, and Peter's Pool, where you can see the glacier reflected in a 'kettle pool' left behind by a huge chunk of ice - at least you used to be able to see it reflected. The glaciers have both retreated so much in the last century it's incredible; Franz is barely visible from Peter's pool any more.
After checking the glaciers off our list, we continued north and stopped off for a whitebait pattie - check - and a look around a Māori arts and crafts gallery. Our route continued north on SH6; after some deliberation, we aimed to get to Punakeike for the night. We collected some other hitchers - student types from Dunedin who were aiming to get to Westport. They had managed to get a very long way over one day, but (thankfully!) we weren't going to their destination - they struck us as a bit shifty. Stef noticed the guy tucking something into his trousers, and we wondered if all our possessions were still in the van; after we dropped them off it turned out he was probably hoiking up his jeans which were low slung around his butt.
We got to our destination by about 7pm, and in celebration of our night at a serviced campsite, decided it would be a night of 'admin' (laundry, charging electronic equipment, freezing and refrigerating food). We did all this whilst knocking up a 'gourmet' sausage pasta casserole (without seasoning or basics like onion, garlic. Interesting.).
We managed to finish all of this in time for a beach stroll to see the sun setting beautifully. We raised a plastic mug of red wine in celebration. We had decided to try and find the local tavern, which, according to the lonely planet allowed guests to pinpoint their home country on a map, but we walked and couldn't find it, so turned back to sit in the lit kitchen on the campsite until it was lights off at 10pm.
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