The Rob Roy Glacier

Ah, back to normal Wanaka sunshine, thankgoodness. Couldn't be doing with too much of that rain. We drove the 50km out to Mount Aspiring National Park and walked up to the Glacier. This did not go without incident as Meg refused to cross the long-ish, narrow suspension bridge and ran off before anyone could make her. We had to decide for the others to go on and for me to stay with Meg. It took quite some persausion to change her determination NOT to cross, into something more positive. In fact, it took a lady a wee bit older than me to turn up and refuse to cross it, to make her not want to be like that. After so many attempts, that had her get a little further each time, she had effectively crossed it about 4 times, before she finally past the point of no return where it was actually deemed safer to run to the other side than run back AGAIN. In fairness it was quite high and the glacial water was gushing below. We were both high as kites when she succeeded, though she felt a bit sick! She flew up the climb of lovely single track through dappled sunlit forest, past a gorge a bit like the walk to Steall Falls, but longer. We stopped only to see a Kea bird which two passing men whispered to us to watch. A huge, ugly, green-brown parrot with a big hook beak. Despite having taken a long time to overcome her bridge fears, she got to the glacier view point before the others had turned back. A wee hero and her Dad was shocked and delighted to see her. We felt as though we had passed through a few movie scenes, from King Kong, to Raiders of the Lost Arc, to the obvious Lord of The Rings, such was the landscape.
When we got home, despite a reasonably long walk, both children became very industrious. Meg cleaning out the shed and sorting out all our rubbish of bike boxes etc (etc being knee pads/flippers/waffle irons) and getting our lives into some semblance of order. Finn spent the evening skateboarding and whittling a stick. A sign that energy really does create energy.