Sunday in NZ

Yesterday we drove along the West coast, quite slowly as we had booked a hostel in Franz Joseph in advance. Stopped at a glacial lake where a young woman was just taking her canoe out, she was the only person around in this quiet and beautiful place. She told us about DIDYMO -(its also known as Rock snot!) there are lots of notices about this around, warning about it, but nothing to tell you what it is! Apparently is it a noxious plant, brought in by an AMERICAN, which looks like brown snot and covers rocks and vegetation, and spreads like the blazes. I wonder when we will get it in the Uk? At Franz Jo we were in a small self-contained unit so could cook etc, but it does mean less contact with other travellers. Nearly all of them seem to be German actually. We took the car up the dusty track towards the glacier, and then walked the last bit through a track with interesting jungle and piping birds. Access to the actual glacier is forbidden at the moment due to the awful rainstorm which has made everything unstable, but we had a good view of the blue ice from about a quarter of a mile away. The mountains covered with clouds above the glacier. Our first glacier!! A white/blue immobile torrent. Lots of love to all the Scots and yourselves. Mumbo.