Arthurs Pass

The weather was not as great as promised, but we headed for Arthurs pass anyways. It was quite a long drive and pretty flat, that was until we hit the pass itself. At that point the car had quite some difficulties to get up the hills, passing the posted speed signs of 80 kmh, with 30-40kmh. This car may fit 4-5 people, but that is either downhill or on a flat surface only.
Decided to pull over on a view point to give the car a rest and to take a look at the valley we just went up. Seconds after parking the car, we were almost attacked by a group of big birds, landing on the car, trying to eat the rubber from the windshield wipers and doors. They were not exactly tame, but kind of used to humans for sure. They didn't care too much when we tried to scare them away, they would just jump on the other side of the car and keep picking at the rubber.
We gave them some cup noodles and they seemed to like it, posing for pictures and even pecking my camera once to see if it was edible. A few minutes later a huge bus arrived and 50 elderly tourists stormed out of the bus tramping each other to get pictures of those birds.
We continued down the the DOC office, New Zealands Department of Conservation, to get some information about good hikes and trails in the national park. I asked about the birds and he said that they were the clowns of the mountains, Kea birds. We should not feed them, because human food would kill them
The ranger suggested go further South and do a 4 hour hike in an area that had the best weather that day. We took off and had some difficulties finding the beginning. Asked a couple of people who were also looking for the trail, so not much help there. Eventually we found a sign that said visitor parking and decided that must be it.
The trail was quite a lot of uphill right away, but we were rewarded with a quite spectacular view after just an hour. The trail went through forests, swamps, cliffs and meadows, more or less going uphill all the time.
I didn't want to leave my laptop in the car, so I was carrying my backpack with me all the way to the top, with rain gear, jackets and lots of drinks. At least I brought stuff, one of the Chilean guys thought this was going to be a walk in the park (well it was, kind of) but he didn't bring any water. Kind of annoying to have to share some with him anyway, but didn't want to carry him down, so probably easier.
We eve'ntually reached our goal, a little 6 persons hut that was being used by overnight hikers. We had spent somewhere around 2 hours to get there, and had been drinking a little too many energy drinks I guess. At least we decided to continue to the top of the hill we could see behind the hut, it didn't look that high...
Around an hour later, we found ourselves on the hilltop, but this time quite exhausted. Every time we thought we had reached the top, there was another summit hiding behind it, that happened maybe 6 times.
The hill climb had been quite steep, but now we found ourselves on the very top of the ridge with a magnificent view in all directions.

On the mountains a bit further South, there was snow and we were almost at the same height as those peaks. There were huge valleys, rivers, snow capped mountain peaks, lots of ridges surrounding the big river carving through the valley floor

My feet were not feeling too good yet, even though they were taped up pretty good. I decided to head down a bit before the others. It was a long and painful walk down the steep trail for 2 hours, the feet really being squeezed in the shoes. The only thing that kept me going at that point was the fact that I knew there were a couple of beers in the the trunk of the car. I made it down changed my clothes and had a beer waiting for the others, and within 5 minutes I had gotten 15 new sand-fly bites. I don't know how many thousand times bigger I am compared to them, but those small bugs are really starting to irritate me a lot at this point.
Arthur's pass is a beautiful place to visit and hike. If we would have had a few more days I could easily have done some longer hike with overnight stays there
After having been to Arthur's pass, we made a long stint of driving to reach Franz Josef Glacier village. The weather next morning was supposed to be very good, and I for sure wanted to experience the glaciers in nice weather.
On the way there we realized that it would be quite late before arriving in the village, so we decided to call and see if any of the hostels had room. Only one of them responded and asked if we were driving and when Ryan answered yes, he hung up. Apparently this guy had some kind of problem, so we called him again and once again he asked if we were driving, to what Ryan asked what that had to do with getting a bed in the hostel - he hung up again. What an annoying person.
We arrived at the village and called him again from his parking lot, he came and met us and immediately we could see that he was a tiny little man with a need of being in control. Ryan and I got a room with two other girls, the Chilean guys decided to stay in the car overnight to save some money. Good night