Fox Glacier Stint
Trip Start
Nov 12, 2007
1
22
40
Trip End
Aug 01, 2008
Fox Glacier,
New Zealand
Monday, February 18, 2008
Awesome (a word used by the young of NZ to describe pretty much everything - so we'll adopt it here)
Wowzy ( a Rob word - Jeanne and Dan you can tut about the decline of the English language)
Slendiferous (a word we have pinched from the Lonely Planet guidebook - which is very appropriate for most things NZ)
We had 2 stop overs for 3 nights as we travelled down the West Coast towards the Southern Alps
Lake Matheson one of the many
. Our first stop after Golden Bay was in Westport. Now the 3 words above probably don't apply to the town itself. Nothing wrong with Westport, a good place to stop the night, but not too much there, plus it was bucketing down with rain when we drove in. However, the rain did clear for an hour and the sun came out so we did what most tourists do, we drove a short distance to Tauranga Bay, to see the fur seal colony. The seals were there lounging on the rocks and the pups were diving around in the waves. A sight to warm the heart.It was valentine's day so we anticipated having difficulty getting a table at a restaurant and being charged a fortune for a meal (a la UK) but across the road from our motel was a restuarant highly praised in our guidebook. As it was pouring down again, it was a relief to get in there without any hassle. This must have been the first meal Rob and I have ever had out on this romantic day. It is not a day we celebrate,as Rob says, he is (apparently)romantic all year round so he does not have to make a fuss on a specified day. Hmmmmmmmm. In any event, we had an execellent home cooked meal in a very relaxed atmosphere without any horrendous surcharge. Maybe this could set a precedent for future years......
The following morning, we headed out in clearing weather for what we thought would be a low key travelling day. Along the way, we stopped off in Paporoa National Park to see the Pancake Rocks and blowholes. It will be obvious when you see our photos (there is no escape) why the limestone rocks have this name. Through layering and weathering the rocks resemble stacks of pancakes. All very interesting. The tide was going out so the blowholes weren't very exciting but it was still worth a look.
Heading on, we decided to stop at another tourist attraction, Shantytown. We were dubious about the whole recreated gold mine town thing but decided to give it a go as we weren't in a (gold) rush. It turned out to be a good stop. There was a good size recreated town with a very short steam train ride but the highlight was the chance to pan for gold. Despite the demostrator's reassurance, neither Rob or I seemed to have the correct technique or thought that we had any gold, but at the end of the panning, there were a few flecks which were bottled up, as a souvenir, to bring back. Not enough to retire on but genuine gold nonetheless.
Our second stop over was in a small town called Hokitika. I sold this stop to Rob on the basis that it was the only attractive place to break up the driving and our chalet was on the beachfront. The idea of surf and sunset photos would make it worthwhile. Of course (being female) I had a different agenda and of course it involved shopping. Hokitika is a main centre for the jade jewellery business. Greenstone is a traditional Maori gemstone and I was hoping to get some here as a special souvenir. I had warned Rob back in August, that I would wait for my birthday present and get something here. I think he was hoping I had forgotten. I hadn't.
I spent a couple for hours sourcing my present while he updated the blog and after my purchase we decided to ease Rob's monetary pain and headed off inland to visit Hokitika Gorge. This was only a quick walk from the car park and it was an attractive spot with the milky turquoise coloured river winding through the gorge.
We watched 2 good sunsets from the beach both evenings. We haven't seen many sunsets on our trip because we have been travelling along the wrong coasts but on the West Coast we should have plenty of oppotunities. We also saw our first glow worms. Opposite the chalets was Glow worm dell. There were a few there but not a spectacular sight. We are hoping to see more further South which we will probably bore you with later in the blog......
Our main stop on the West Coast was at Fox Glacier. There are a few in NZ but Fox and Franz Josef are the well known ones because they are bigger. OK a brief geology lesson. There is heavy snowfall in the mountains and the snow gets compressed down into ice and then due to gravity moves down the valley. The glaciers here are unusual because they are at this lattitude and because they are much faster moving than the Swiss glaciers. They are also unusual because they are so close to rainforest and the coast.
They are an impressive sight. They are 23km apart, so we stopped off at Franz Glacier and did the tourist taking photos at the viewpoint bit, then went on to Fox Glacier where we were staying in the very small resort. We got ourselves organised on to a couple of excursions and hoped that the weather held for our 2 full days there.
On the first day, we did a half day (4hour) guided walk to walk on Fox Glacier. There were 12 in our group and our guide led us up the valley through the rainforest. Along the way she explained about the formation and movement of the glaciers and while we were stood there admiring the terminal (the end of the glacier) a large chunk of ice broke off and fell away to demostrate the point she had been making. It made a very loud noise, which could only leave you to imagine what an avalanche would sound like.
After a steady climb through the forest and past a couple of rock faces, we were up along side the glacier and had to don crampons before walking on the ice. Fortunately, several other guides had been up earlier in the morning and had chipped away ice steps, with an ice axe, across the glacier so the tourists could walk on it. We were on the ice for about an hour and were able to get closer to the crevasses and ice to see what the glacier was like beneath. An enjoyable walk. Not something we would normally do on a Monday morning in Reading.
For our second full day, we got up at 6am. Now that we are in holiday mode (or retirement mode in Rob's case) it has to be something worthwhile to disturb our slumbers at that time of the morning. Not that I'm saying it wasn;'t worth getting up at that offensive time to get to work - my colleagues - Jeanne Sandie and Richard are a sight to behold when they arrive in the office, but after 15 years of sitting with them, it pays to have a change of scenery in the morning. Bleary eyed we drove 5 minutes down the road to Lake Matheson and joined the other early birds and tour parties who had been tipped off by Lonely Planet. We waited for the sun to come up and then saw another one of the views of the holiday. The 3 words are very applicable here. The lake was very still (apart from a few ducks who Rob was threatening to take out) so the grand peaks of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook (the highest in NZ) were clearly reflected in the water. Fortunately, it was a reasonably clear morong, so the views of the peak of Mount Cook were cloud free at certain times. This is the most photographed lake in NZ, Rob had taken 70 photos before we had even got to the main viewing area (sorry folks!) It was worth the early morning though.
In the afternoon, Rob lived up to his new Milk Tray man image and set off for a heli-hike..........(E)
Valentine's Day commercial bunkum.
Heli-hike - The Fox Glacier is 13 km long and only the lower reaches are readily accessible by foot. However you have the opportunity to get much further up the glacier by jumping in a helicopter and being dropped off on the higher slopes with a guide. After 38 years this was my first helicopter experience and I would have to give the experience a mixed review. Take off; fine, gentle climb up over the glacier with great views as you come through the broken cloud; great, scenic flight over glacier; wonderful, quick swings across towards cliff faces; scary, flight over waterfall with steep descent down the other side so you did not know which way up you were; no comment had eyes closed and felt slightly sick! However we soon landed on the glacier on a tiny bit of flat ice and met our guide. There were nine of us and we set out on a 2 hour trek around the glacier. Unlike lower down there is no defined track and you wander round with the guide looking for caves arches and other features. If there is a steep or inaccessible bit the guide uses his ice axe to cut a step. It is a strange enviroment with huge crevasses mounds slopes caves and streams. Some areas have quite a lot of stones and debris but others are pristine ice often glinting many different shades of blue. We saw several caves but none the guide felt confident enough for us to go in. A highly unusual but great 2 hours. Then all too soon it was back into the helicopter for the trip back down. The pilot thought we would like one quick drop as we flew over one cliff. I did not necessarily agree with this but was not in a position to argue. The pilots can certainly fly.
