After a quiet night at the Abba Garden Motel, we awoke to find ourselves denied entry into Paradise, Paradise being the area around Glenorchy we had planned to visit yesterday. We learned that the clutch on our campervan had been already disassembled, and that the new clutch plate had arrived and would be installed before noon. With time on our hands, we decided to explore Queenstown again. Pegah did her best to cheer me up, with a nice hot cup of coffee and her usually happy demeanor. It didn't work entirely, however, because I was still irritated that we had received a vehicle in such poorer shape than had been advertised. Still, I tried to make the best of it, but I wasn't as good at it as she was.
We ambled down to the lakefront to see that the tourist attractions were already in full swing. The paraflight boat had already attracted a number of hardy souls interested in getting dunked in the water using a parachute instead of a bungy jump. Actually, the thrill seemed to be in riding the parachute, which could be reeled out and then into the boat again, but the participants were wearing life jackets just in case. Nearby a fellow in a submersible watercraft known, I believe, as a "Seabreacher" was zooming around the harbor, briefly submerging and leaping out of the water like a huge, mechanical dolphin. I don't know if he was selling rides or not, but it looked like he was having a lot of fun.
I took the opportunity to get some more pictures of Pegah; I think she photographs beautifully against the water. After an hour or so, she lifted me out of my grumpy mood enough to enjoy the beautiful morning. We were fortunate to see the TSS Earnslaw dock with a boatload of sightseers. I had thought this 103 year old steamboat was made of wood, but it turns out to be steel with fiberglassed decks of Kauri, an evergreen tree native only to the far north of North Island. Later, we got to see the boat load up with coal, which I learned came from the historic mines in Denniston. The Earnslaw made a brief cameo appearance in the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as an Amazon River boat.
One of the unuaual events of the day was an exhibition of exotic cars by Archibald Motor Group of Christchurch. Although my sports car days are behind me, I had to admit that this one caught my eye, especially because of the color. The driver's position is on the wrong side, though!

Our walk was interrupted by the news that our campervan clutch (but not the air conditioning) had been repaired, and we were at last ready to go. The people at Stuart Motors were kind enough to pick us up at the hotel. Cameron, the receptionist, consoled us for our unscheduled layover with two lunch tickets for the Cook Strait Ferry he had received a long time ago but had never used.

We stopped at the town of Makarora to fuel up, and encountered a couple in this old but serviceable touring car. I thought Pegah was going to talk to them and learn the story about this venerable old machine, but when I came outside after paying the bill, they were already driving away. The people appeared to be exceptionally well bundled up for the mild climate, but they were obviously used to traveling this way and knew what they were doing. We continued on toward the Haast Village and west coast in anticipation of seeing the glaciers of the Southern Alps. I was expecting a huge expanse of ice and snow crossing the highway, but all we saw of the Fox glacier was this little trickle of water. We never saw any ice at all!
Nevertheless, we did see plenty of advertisement for glacier-related activities, such as ice climbing and helicopter rides to see what remains of the ice. Franz Josef Township reminds one of a European Alpine Village. This town of about 300 people has up to 2700 visitors per day during the tourist season, with hotel accommodations for about 2000. Since 2012, the terminal face of the glacier has become too unstable to approach or climb due to global warming, but one can view the glacier from an all-day hike up the 4275 foot Alex Knob, overlooking the Franz Josef Glacier and the valley below. Since 2008, the normally variable glacier has begun a very rapid retreat, going away forever via this meltwater stream.
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