Stray Day 1 - Christchurch to Franz Josef

Up at 6ish for the bus to Greymouth to join up with the Stray bus, who I am touring the South Island with. I didn't sleep fantastically well, in part because I was so terrified of missing the 7am bus!

The journey was pretty, nice views along the way as we crossed the alps via Arthur's Pass. There was some rain though, and the bus windows were very dirty so no good photos unfortunately. Landed in Greymouth just over an hour before the bus was due, so had a wander around. Greymouth is rubbish.

I felt a bit intimidated getting on the Stray bus, as it looked quite busy so they'd all know each other already. Turns out they'd partied hard the night before also, so were well bonded by this point. I sat myself next to Angela and we mooched on to Hokitika. This mainly involved going to the supermarket. As it turned out, supermarket stops would become a big feature of the bus. Since I had no intention of cooking at any point, this was less than interesting. We had a couple of photo stops to check first views of the glacier and soon we reached Franz Josef.

I'd been advised to do the full day glacier hike, and despite my trepidation I signed up and forked out 160 bucks (that was with the discount!) for the hike and a trip to the hot pools afterwards. There was some ogling of the guides who were wandering around the building, then onto the Rainforest Retreat hostel. It's fine, really doesn't have enough showers/toilets but other than that seems okay. I went for the backpacker meal in the bar and got talking to some people, 2 girls from the North who had also joined the bus that day and some of the others as the night went on. Early to bed though to be up for the glacier!