From Fox Glacier, we took a bus to Lake Wanaka, and I know one rarely hears praise for bus rides, but it was one of the most beautiful bus rides I've been on.
(I was mesmerized by the color of the water.)
To answer the sheep to people ratio, it used to be 20:1, but as of 2008, it's only 8 sheep per person. (New Zealand has a population of about 4.3 million people, most of whom live on the north island. One-third of the population (about 1.4 million) lives in Auckland alone.)
We were running ahead of schedule, so our driver let us get off at Bruce Bay, where some (rumor has it) Peruvians started cairns (rock piles) a few years ago, and now, everyone stops, puts a rock on a cairn and makes a wish.
We didn't pick the prettiest rocks, but we made our wishes and put our stones on a cairn, too. (I think my partner may have picked up a piece of asphalt (2nd from top), but anyway.)
We stopped for some delicious homemade scones covered in raspberry jam and fresh cream:
And learned that the Kiwis farm deer:
Then, we stopped to switch bus drivers and got to take a walk through more jungle to reach Thunder Creek Falls.
So, the motto of our trip to Australia and New Zealand seems to be summed up by this t-shirt:
(And yes, you know someone's cheap when they take a picture of a t-shirt. But, to be fair, I wouldn't actually wear it...)
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