Fox Glacier, Arrowtown & arriving Queenstown

We've now driven back from the West coast and are in the Queenstown area (not a million miles from Wanaka!).
We're governed a bit at this early stage by the fact we booked some accommodation (weeks1 & 3 in NZ) with our timeshare points - which, incidentally, we wished we'd never bought - and this has caused us to take an odd route on our travels . i.e. travelling north from Wanaka to west coast and then back down same roads, but further south towards Queenstown.
We're actually in a quaint little town called Arrowtown today. It's a reconstructed gold mining town (very twee!). It has got a superb little cinema though, where we went to see 'Beyond the Sea' last night. Film's about the life of Bobby Darin and stars Kevin Spacey. Would recommend it (definitely one for Mr Pashley as music is right up his street!).
Oh we had a small incident in Franz Josef the other night. I managed to lock the car keys in the boot of the car. The car naturally was locked as well. This resulted in us having to call the AA man, who proved to be very congenial chap and managed with the aids of wires and inflatable air bags to reach the internal boot open mechanism next to the footwell of the car. Because of this delay though we revised our original plans which were to go further North and then head back towards Queenstown via Arthur's Pass.

Hey - I'm now in a different Internet cafe, same day, different place. We're in Queenstown. Rita's replying to e-mails.
First impressions of Queenstown weren't good, lovely setting, horrible buildings. Since then things have picked up and we're now by the lakeside and the sun's out (sporadically), so things are not too bad.
Already spotted a cinema and I think we'll go and watch 'Departed' (Jack Nicholson, Leonarda Decaprio & Matt Damon) tonight. We like films.

Anyway, let's cast our minds back a little to Fox's Glacier.
I know the mints have been around a while, but I think that the actual glacier is even older. We just viewed this one, rather than walking on it.
We stayed in the village of Fox on Tuesday 21/11/2006. Accommodation was fairly tight, but we struck lucky. We booked in at a backpackers hostel, but ended up in a 3 bedroomed bungalow which we shared with two other couples. This proved fortuitous, because we got on really well with our fellow travellers.
In fact we're meeting Alan & Sue (from Halifax) in Queenstown sometime this week and we went out for a meal with them in Fox. They are fellow veterans of the Tod Boundary walk.
The other couple Jim & Sue were Aussies and had spent over 3 hours stuck on the top of a glacier during the day because the helicopter could not take them down until the cloud lifted a bit. They didn't seem too dispirited by this experience though - at least they had the right gear on which is more than some in their party did.

Oooh I shouldn't go without having a quick moan about my decrepit joints (non-smokables). I had cortisone injections in my hips before I left the UK and these seem pretty effective. Trouble is my knees are giving me gyp now, particularly the right one , where the underlying problem has been exacerbated by the Glacier expedition. Rita tells me I'm getting more like Jack (my dad) every day and now I seem to have a limited flexion of my leg, in the same way that he has. His problems been with him for the last 55 years though, since he broke his leg playing footie at the age of 31! Anyway, Rita's getting more like Molly.