Days 8-10: Rain Rain go away and a touchdown pass

            I’ve grouped these days together because as we drove west from seal-town/wine country we learned that van people (which were are) unlike house people (which we were) are beholden to the whims of mother nature. It essentially rained for 2.5 days straight and while it was sideways rain, it shared none of the jubilant charm of the early morning Rarotongin tropical rainstorm. (Maybe it’s the 30 degree temperature difference). That’s not to say we didn’t find a way to have fun (we were loaded up from wine country after all) but when its sunny your van is a home base that allows you to bring the wonders of nature to your doorstep, and when it pours it’s a tiny damp metal box that your trapped in pretending your bladder is not about to explode because “there’s no way im going out there,” and wondering if the Diwali is equipped with life vests.  Either way its still new Zealand and were still deiters so we had fun. After a beautiful ride heading west through the mountains that run down the center spine of the south island we made our way to a D.O.C campsite at lake Mahinapua which is just inshore from the super angry ship eating Tasman sea. We made basil pesto pasta on a picnic table lakeside in what will likely be the most beautiful kitchen we will ever cook in. I hope the pics do it justice but in case they don’t it had snowcapped mountains reflected in the lake in the eveinin sun and big white cranes stalking the shallows for fish. It was just starting to spritz at this point and there were a group of what must have been high school kids "smoking doobers" in there dads BMW by the lake….or technically in the lake (wait for pic) but outside of that strangeness the night was great. We ran into our original trip friend from Rarotonga the lovely and German Katja who randomly happened to be coming up with her tour group to see the lake and then we met our first American couple friends, Joey and Rachel, no not the ones from friends, but they are actors and will be playing romeo and Juliet respectively in Memphis in a few months (if your in town). We shared gin drinks and laughs before the rain delay began in earnest and we had to retreat to the Diwali.

               Day 9 featured the storm in full effect and completely squashed our plans to hike the franz Josef glacier. It was grey and rainy all day which means that the whole area is basically shut down (who wants to stare at some stupid old ice anyway?) Franz Josef glacier has partially collapsed near the bottom and is only accessible by helicopters which don’t fly in the fog/rain and when we went to Fox glacier the trail access was closed because of flooding. We got to within 1000 meters of it though, and were assured by a sign that it was just up around the corner. The Fox/Franz area is absolutely stunning with mountains scraping the sky and glaciers everywhere you turn…..at least according to the post cards we saw pouring salt on our rainy day wounds. We were bummed to miss it but found a cool bar with a fireplace to dry our soggy bones, ate delicious beef and chees sliders from chef Tash and then went for a nighttime hike to see glowworms (tiny worms that look like Christmas lights on the trees in the forests) which was actually pretty cool. After that we tucked back into the Diwali and turned the heater on for the first time to dry everything out and then got ready to make a run over the super scary Haast pass heading back over the mountains into the center of the country tomorrow.

              Day 10 began with uncertainty about whether we would be able to do the Haast pass. It is quite treacherous and is closed every night and in “certain weather conditions” and we we’re warned by our friend from the ferry crossing that some tourists were killed by a landslide 6 weeks ago and to make sure and ask the locals if it’s safe to cross. Because our moms read this I will say that we will absolutely never do anything that could jeopardize our safety in any way and if we had to wait 10 days for the pass to be safe or had to drive back the way we came, we would do so without hesitation. We were tentatively hopeful in the morning because it seemed like the storm had lost much of its anger and that it was periods of sun with patches of rain rather than vice versa. We had breakfast at the beautiful lake Matheson (again according to postcards) and set off for the mountains. I am happy to report that the sun came on stronger as the morning progressed and we were relieved to find many other travelers making the journey with us. Before long we were Deiter-ing on down the trail singing “holiday Road” (a-la national lampoons family vacation). We stopped at several waterfalls on the way up which were awesome because of the recent rain and had some final views of the grey and foreboding Tasman sea before descending into a valley that truly displayed some of the rugged south island beauty that everyone has been talking about. It was jaw dropping pastureland with mountains all around (real rather than the post card variety this time) with a series of deep blue lakes. It was sunny and stunning and we were smiling. From there we hit todays destination of Wanaka, a funky little town on the way to Queenstown.  We had a craft beer and a big ole’ bowl of potato wedge fries in the center of town before we were treated to a bizarre parade with fire trucks, ambulances and kids dressed like zombies (for real, check out the pics) that marked the start of “Wanaka fest” which we arrived just in time to attend. As we drove to park at the holiday park we hilariously found ourselves IN the actual parade, but luckily the Diwali is big and pink and weird (thus fitting in perfectly) so we rolled down the windows and started waiving to people. Classic Deiters. We made it to the holliday park which has free wifi, 2 hot tubs which we have already tested out, and a poster that alerted us to a sick lakeside Frisbee golf course about 5 minutes away. Also they have a one month old baby lamb named “Ralph” who gave me a kiss on the nose (do baby lambs and baby seals get along?) Everything’s comin up Deiter.