We both slept like logs now that we're used to the hard bed, and were up and going shortly after 8:00 again. Took yet another road through the mountains, with more gorgeous, eye-popping views. The road took us past the Franz Josef glacier and it's accompanying town, sort of like a little Vail before it was famous, very cute, though pretty crowded. We crossed the "Southern Alps" past Fox glacier as well, until we finally stopped just before Queenstown to do some shopping. Turns out Queenstown is a major tourist trap, very crowded and busy, reminded us of Aspen during the high season. After shopping and fuel, we headed along the narrow road up to Glenorchy, where many iconic scenes from the LOTR was filmed. One thing we've seen hundreds of are backpackers, and Glenorchy was full of them. We decided to camp at a DOC camp called Lake Sylvan, the trailhead of the Routeburn trail. It literally passed the horse farm where we would be riding tomorrow, and we in fact turned in to get acquainted, and to see if they had a wifi signal. I've been astonished at how difficult it has been to find wifi, the New Zealanders are extremely dear with it. Our first campground gave me a free 100 mb allowance (the same as my monthly allotment from Verizon on my international package!), but it didn't last 10 minutes! Apparently checking email and loading up two pictures is enough to clear that out, would you believe. I learned that I probably should have bought a wifi sim card from a company called Sparkz, apparently for $5 you get 5 (or maybe 20, can't remember which) gigs of data and a rechargeable sim card, and they have little kiosks all over the place, like at gas stations and restaurants. But I didn't want to be a slave to finding a Sparkz site, so I'll just have to save everything up for when I get more wifi freedom (maybe Australia?) Or get home, whichever comes first. Anyway, we headed out to Sylvan Lake, with the last bit being a washboard gravel road somewhat like the way brother Jeff's road used to be before they made a deal with someone to grade it regularly, past more pastures full of sheep (which we've seen millions of since we've been here), until we reached the open area that was the campground. Nicely laid out, each site was a semicircle of grass around a loop. We quickly found a spot near the water spigot and got settled in. After dinner, I took a walk on the Routeburn Trail, which started with a suspended walking bridge over a stream, then spilled out into a dark and creepy forest, though the trail was very manicured, upraised with packed down gravel, bridges over every little stream. More like a walk in the woods rather than a hike. Came back and settled down for the evening, looking forward to our ride tomorrow!
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