Photos from New Zealand (July 2007)

I'm continuing to add more photos, this time the first set from my self-driven tour of New Zealand at the end of July 2007.  I hired a tiny 1.1L Hyundai AtoZ in bright metallic pea green at Auckland and took the next few days to drive south, crossing from the north island at Wellington to Picton in the south island.  There's some beautiful drives and surely everyone knows how wonderful the landscapes are all around there.  Pretty good wines too ;)  I was really lucky with the weather for most of the trip and met at least one very memorable person there.

For those that aren't that familiar with the Islands, Franz Josef is a small village near a glacier of the same name and that is also practically next to the Fox glacier on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand.  Oddly there's a building in the town which houses one of the world's few indoor ice walls to practice climbing on.  Better than using the real and much more dangerous real thing, I guess.  I'll be adding photos later of the heli-hike I took onto the upper region of the glacier, which I'm a  little ashamed of considering that the environment is one of my usual soap box issues - I'm fully aware it's very hypocritical of me to have done this!

More pics including those of the ice, more stunning scenery and random other bits to follow soon.