It was someone’s bright idea (not mine) to go on a hike in the morning for the view of the glaciers and the ocean all in one. The hike was steep and seemed steeper hung-over, and when I finally dragged myself to the top I was greeted by swarms of sand flies. I’m sure the view would have been amazing but all we saw were clouds. We didn’t have any repellent so we spend a few minutes slapping ourselves and then hiked down again. We were not sad to leave the glacier region as it had left us very disappointed.

Simon was always way ahead of the rest of us and took pictures of the stragglers

We found a pretty beach to have lunch on but the minute we sat down we were swarmed with sand flies. They are like mosquitoes but their bite stays for much longer and it itches like crazy. We ate as fast as possible to minimize the sand flies’ feasting, but they would bite any showing skin and our ankles suffered. Back in the car it was also full of sand flies so I made it into a sport to kill them. At least they stopped bothering to eat on us in the car but fluttered around the windows so it was easy to shoo them out or squash them.

Haast Pass waterfall

We drove through Haast pass and stopped at many waterfalls, it was pretty but it had nothing on Arthur’s Pass. I enjoyed the blue pools the most and wished it was warmer so we could have swam in them, since they had the most stunning blue color. We made it to Queenstown in the evening and Simon and Hendrik were disappointed to find out that the bungee/ rafting combo left at 8:00 AM and all the booking offices were closed, so they were worried they wouldn’t be able to do what they had wanted again, and therefore they were very anxious to get up early and hope to still be able to go.

The pictures don't do justice to the Blue Pools