"I'M IN THE SADDDDLE!!"


After experiencing the craziness of Queenstown, our next stop was the tiny town of Fox Glacier. Population 400. Seriously. The town consisted of one block which contained a general store, a pub, a climbing guide, an internet cafe, and a few small motels. The picture to the left actually shows pretty much the entire town! Mars and I got off the bus and it felt like we had traveled back in time to a frontier town in the early 1900s. We walked into our motel and were only asked one question. Not "Can I see your pre-paid voucher" or "What is your last name" (I guess they were expecting us). The guy asked us "Would you like some milk?". haha! They give you milk at check in... our kind of place! After we got our room key (the other room key was conveniently already in the unlocked room door) we asked the two staff members how we should go about seeing the glacier. They looked genuinely puzzled. We said we'd drop our stuff in our room and come back. When we returned, we were told that there were no taxis in Fox Glacier, but this local guy named Murray would be more than happy to take us and show us around. So ten minutes later, up pulled good 'ol Mur, in his cute little "tour bus", and for $10 each, he took us up to the glacier, gave us some history, waited, then took us to a swing bridge (very unstable!) to get another view of the glacier. So great, and so random! We got a good pic of our favourite tour guide below.

Seeing the glacier was pretty cool, but we couldn't walk right up to it, as the path had been closed off due to 2 tourists dying in April. We still got a great view of it, though, and the scenery was, as per usual, amazing. The pictures of us crouched on the rock and on the swing bridge are an homage to Uncle Jim.... set up painstakingly with the automatic timer!!


So after our private guided glacier tour, the girl at the motel front desk (Lisa) told us that there was going to be a live band named The Wolverines playing at the Cook Saddle Saloon (!) and that we should come. So we had dinner there and waited for the live band, described on the hand drawn poster as a "rock, hillbilly, irish" band. They were a five piece band: mini guitar, guitar, violin, wooden box, cello. I can't make this stuff up... see pic. Everyone of drinking age in the town was there. Not one song into the band's set, this old local bird who was absolutely hammered climbed ungracefully into one of the saddles that was decorating the wall (you have to open this pic to see her... she's on the wall on the right side!) and slurred at the top of her drunken lungs "I'm in the sadddddle!!". Hilarious. Unbelieveably hilarious.

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