Day 2: Travel to Franz Josef

Today we began our journey with a little 8 hour drive through the mountainous and western country side of the south island. It rained most of the day sadly but nevertheless we could still see how beautiful everything was for the entirety of the trip. The rain also created amazing waterfalls on all sides of the mountains which was really cool to see. Our tour guide/bus driver, Jaime, told us lots about Chch, and the following towns that we drove through throughout the drive. He grew up in Chch and fortunately wasn't harmed at all by the earthquake, but told us that 80,000 residents had already left permanently from Chch with tens of thousands living in trailer parks, now homeless. Once we were on the west coast we stopped in a small gold-mining town called Hotikika (roughly 1,500 people I'd say). It's very small now but when they prospected gold there back in 1865, 55,000 people rushed in! The town was right on the water too. Absolutely gorgeous black sand beach with rough surf pounding the shore. Words definitely couldn’t describe that setting. Then we arrived in Franz Josef for the night - city made just for the glacier basically haha. Just like the hostel I stayed at in Rotorua, it has a hot tub, kitchen, showers and free movies to rent. We spent the night watching 'Meet the Parents' and hanging out at the small bar in town. Free drinks for anyone who wanted to eat the world's hottest jellybean or take a shot of chili sauce (really hot). People did it too...some were fine but others started crying and coughing and having a real tough time with it so in the end they didn't even want the beer! Tomorrow we spend the day on the Glacier!