Following the schedule, Debbie and I were up early to wait for our bus starting our “Q” Pass tour with Stray. After some confusion, we got on to a bus that took us across to the west coast and joined our actual tour at Greymouth. The weather was beautiful at first seeing many scenic sights of mountains and falls, and slowly the rain came. In the middle of the mountain range, I realized I lost my wallet. I stayed clam hoping that I only misplaced it somewhere in my backpack, until I searched thru all bags and pockets and confirmed that I will continue my trip with my remaining cash (less than $200), no credit card and most IDs. Thank god that I still got my passport and a friend who I was travelling with to help me out, but I couldn’t help feeling vulnerable like part of me is gone and lost.The rest of the day was hard to concentrate and fully enjoyed wondering how I lost my wallet, if I could recover the wallet from the hostel, and I could get a new credit card at my next majoy stop at Queenstown. Somehow I knew something got to happen in this trip as I left Canada. I blamed it on my bad luck, but I kicked myself for being so careless.
When we got to Greymouth and found our Stray bus, we got our next suprise. Our itinarery had some changes few weeks ago. First off the bat, we missed Barrytown to make our own knife and bone pendant. Debbie and I were disappointed that we couldn’t make our own bone pendant as we looked forward to it, but we had to believe the tour itinarery changed for better. Our Kiwi tour guide / bus driver, Taxi, told us everything will be fine as long as we stay with him for the entire trip. I guess we should, and why not when our guide is cute =)
To made up the lost of opportunity making our own bone pendant, the bus stopped at one big outlet like jewlery store selling all kind of Maori designed pendant in bone or jade. I wasn’t too interested as I was too distracted with my lost and change of plan.
After a tacky tourist stop, we stopped for Jum Michel Walk, my first rain forest hike. New Zealand and Vancouver has similar weather, but sceneries at the forest hikes are so different with very different plants. At last, we arrived our check in point for the night at Franz Josef, where we booked our glacier walk the next day. The full day tour was fully booked when we got there, so we could only go for the 3/4 day tour - another bumper. After we checked in our hostel, walked around the town a little and had pizza for dinner. The pizza was good and cheesy to make my confused day a bit better.
To plan for our next day hike plus wanting to save money, I convinced Debbie to buy food and make our next day meals. I am very grateful that I was travelling with Debbie, and she is so nice willing to help me out. What a day for me! Things could be worst, but I hoped things would get better from here.