by Patricia Young

Created on: June 10, 2008   Last Updated: November 24, 2008

The year was 1965, and my girlfriend and I were on a hitchhiking adventure around New Zealand. We each carried a backpack containing a sleeping bag, two changes of clothes, toiletries, a torch, and a small saucepan, two tin mugs, cutlery and of course, a tin opener. We were staying at Youth Hostels along the way wherever possible. The Youth Hostels Association was still in its fledgling stages, and the hostels were extremely basic. But we didn't mind. We were on our very first adventure of a lifetime and we were having fun, lots of it.

At that time, it was still very safe for two girls to hitch their way around. People were, for the most part, very nice and helpful to two young ladies out to see the country on a shoestring budget. We had been overwhelmed with kindness from perfect strangers who gave us lifts along the way. They couldn't do enough to help us.

We had completed the North Island and now we were making our way down the South West coast of the South Island. The rides were few and far between in this sparsely populated part of the world, and one night we camped out under the stars as we were miles from the nearest town. It was freezing cold, and in the morning we were covered in a thin sheet of ice. Thank goodness for our sleeping bags.

We were heading for Fox Glacier one of the New Zealand west coast glaciers. The scenery was awe inspiring as we made our way up to the glacier. We stood on the stony moraine, the glacier debris, and admired the view. High mountains towered above us and the deep valleys stretched for miles below and beyond, all covered in dense temperate rainforest not a sign of civilization anywhere. The silence was deafening! The path of the glacier formed a long funnel shaped ravine to where the snow accumulated at the top. The ice from the high alps creeps down the steep crevice to the lower slopes on its erratic journey of advancing and retreating towards the coast. This mighty moving river of ice and the Franz Josef Glacier nearby are unique in this wild mountainous part of New Zealand.

We were back on the road again, heading south, and not a car in sight. We tramped along, at one with nature enjoying the solitude until just past the tiny town of Paringa we came to a sign by the road "End of Seal". We knew that we were on our own no cars would venture down this way to give us a lift. We were at the start of the road works for the Haast Pass under construction to join the west coast with the east coast.

We didn't want to retrace our

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