Wild West

We hiked up the Alex Knob trail next to the Franz Josef glacier. By the time we got up high it was cloudy so mostly we got views of rainforest :) which did not disappoint. Once again everyone went their own pace and somehow we finished together almost at the same time after hours of movement. Pretty wild. There was some running and lots of solo hiking. Hazel took turns hiking, running, exploring and bouncing between parents. Will was a free agent. Will loves solo hiking. I realized it was going to take some gentle encouragement for me to squeeze in a hike with Will on the South Island. Spoiler alert: I made it happen :) and it was glorious. Stay tuned for future post.

Hazel was the official Alex Knob photographer. I found about one hundred photos of my backside. It made me laugh so hard. I had to drop a few here just to remind me. That kid. Love her. She madly and deeply loves me. We are in pre-pre-teen land :)

Some fungi along the way. So fun!

OK, too funny that I remarked about noticing light in the last post and then we saw these surreal rays of sunlight!! It was as cool and intense as it looks in the photo. Hazel of course took the opportunity to be in the spotlight. Bonkers cool.

We scratched our adrenalin itch ever so slightly with a forest zip line. In the end everyone loved it, but you can see from the photos that our emotional starting places were different!! It was cool. I love that stuff. Now there is talk of bigger adrenalin itches that want to be scratched on the north island, weather permitting. We’ll see. Exciting!!

From the glaciers we headed north. Stopping for aome coastal camping, coast beach walks and runs along the way. The winter swell is steady and gorgeous. We continue to find indoor swimming pools for Will’s training. Every town has a recreation center. Some of them have lazy rivers, slides and other fun perks for Hazel’s aquatic entertainment. Did I mention it’s quiet out here?