Drove from Franz Joseph Glacier Park along a winding west coast highway with the terrain very subtropical…any side roads off the highway tunnel through the bush…it is absolutely beautiful with ferns growing right up to the roadside…the vegetation along the roadside has to be periodically cut so it doesn’t grow out to the highway…not only along the ground but up the height of the vehicles. We passed through the southern Alps just east of Haast and experienced the incredible expanse of the Haast river cascading down the mountain side over rocks as huge as 2 to 3 stories high…water rushing everywhere…it was an incredible sight…we then tramped (they used tramped instead of hiked) to the Twin Blue Pools…Gloria faced her fears and walked across a swinging bridge over the Blue River although she was reciting the 23rd Psalm all the way…and if donkey could make it across in Shrek, Gloria could do it here…Tamara made sure she had a picture of it. We again climbed high into the mountains and came to the lookout over Queenstown and area…the scene before us again was amazing…surrounded by mountains but the bottom was flat and green with all kinds of fields and pastures…incredible sight…what is so different about NZ is that as you drive through it you always move into a new terrain and it is like you are in a different country. Queenstown is a bustling Banff…construction everywhere and full of tourists…prices are rising out of sight for property…beautiful place but just good to visit.