Not a mint in sight!

  Christchurch, New Zealand
Monday, January 29, 2007

The West Coast of the South Island is renowned as glacier country, with numerous glaciers working there way downwards from the Southern Alps. However, there are two particularly famous ones, Fox and Franz Joseph and this was my next destination.

But first, the little matter of the 6 hour drive from Queenstown. In a previous blog I mentioned how spectacular the roads are here and yet again, this drive took my breath away - the variety of landscapes you encounter is astonishing, and the rapidity that you encounter them is fantastic.

The most stunning drive in the world - probably

 

You can be driving down a mountainside with snow all around and in a half an hour you find yourself driving through a rain-forest. I'm sure there are other places in the world where you can do this, but I've yet to see them. The other great thing about the driving is how easy it is - there's minimal traffic on the road and around every corner, it seems, are rest stops with walks into the wilderness. So, what should have taken me around 5 hours took 8 as I wandered off into these little walks to stretch my legs, see waterfalls and generally be blown away by the beauty of the place.

First stop was the Fox Glacier. My first view of it was from up a little side road 4km up into the forest

Fox's Glacier (mint)

 

- you have a little clearing and you can see this enormous chunk of ice carving it's way through the valley - what makes this glacier (and Franz) unique is that they are two of only three glaciers in the world that descend into rainforest. The other similar glacier is to be found in Argentina - where I should be in a couple of months. All the other glaciers in the world tend to be much higher up on mountains or, as in the Arctic and Antarctic in a place where there is minimal vegetation around. It's a really strange sight to see this huge chunk of ice descending into a forest valley.

However, it's when you get up close that the sheer scale of thing hits you - it's very difficult to convey that size through a picture, but if you look closely on this one, you can just make out a figure in pink at the base of the glacier - this should give you the impression of the size of the thing.

One big chunk of ice

When I arrived in Franz township, I had an enormous stroke of luck - the lady who runs the B&B where I stayed asked if I was going up to the glaciers that evening - my plan was actually to do a heli-walk the next day - when they helicopter you up to the top of the glacier and you spend 3 hours walking around the ice caves, etc. I'd said no and she said I should do a quick trip as the forecast for the following day was really bad - so I went into town and got onto the last helicopter flight of the day - a half hour jolly around Fox and Franz with a 5 minute set down and stroll on Fox - I really now have run out of superlatives to describe these experiences - mind-blowing, wow, etc etc. Anyway, look at the piccies again!

Artisitc or what!

One interesting thing to note about both the glaciers (and whisper this quietly) is they're both advancing (in other words getting bigger and moving back towards to sea), Fox at quite a rate, up to 70cm a day. Now in the days of global warming, this really shouldn't be happening - but it is. Now, in a previous couple of blogs, I may have given the impression that I was about to turn into a fully fledged eco-warrior - rest assured I'm not, I'm just a bit more aware than I used to be - but, and again don't mention this too loudly, the locals here aren't hugely convinced by the global warming ideas, especially as they see their rather large neighbours trundling towards them! Perhaps we're not yet about to see Bognor Regis turn into the new Barbados!

Anyway, back to the journey - Sure enough, the following day it was pissing it down, and all heli trips were off, and was set for the entire day - so, I jumped in the car and headed of to explore a bit more of this area. My intention was to make it to a little place called Westport, to see the famous coastal drive and the fantastically called Cape Foulwind! As I made my way the weather got worse and worse and by the time I reached a little place called Punakaiki, there was a cyclone warning in place and a recommendation not to take the coastal road due to winds in excess of 150kph! So, after seeing the Punakaiki Blow Holes and Pancake Rocks,

Don't look like a pancake to me!

 

I pottered back to Greymouth, which to me has the distinction of being the most depressing place I've seen in New Zealand.

The following day (today), it's back to Christchurch - again the weather played a part in buggering the day a bit - instead of a nice relaxing drive across to Alps with stunning views it was a battling drive in bloody awful weather - well, you can't argue with Mother Nature!

Whilst on the drive, I unfortunately encountered a possum - or rather it encountered the front wheels of my car as it tried to cross in front of me. One of the slightly odd things about New Zealand is its wildlife, or lack of it. New Zealand has only two native mammals, both of which are bats - in other words they have no actual native land walking animals. For this reason, a large proportion of their birds had become flightless, including the kiwi as they had no land based predators, indeed it was safer to be on the ground than in the air. Others are on their way to losing flight, including the wood pigeon - now the reason I mention this bird is it's probably the funniest thing I've ever seen flying around. For a start, it's lost some of it's feathers through evolution, so when it does fly it's really not very good at it and secondly, it gets pissed - a lot. It's staple diet is juniper berries which ferment in its stomach - now juniper also happens to be the base ingredient for some kinds of gin, so this is kind of a problem. So, if you're in New Zealand and happen to see a bird tumbling from the sky, as we did  - don't worry it's not dead, it's just a pissed wood pigeon! This place also has the world's only arctic parrot, the Kai.

Git

 

It's an inquisitive little beast and has a weird habit of jumping into cars in car parks - this particular example spent a couple of minutes walking around my car looking for a way in - thieving git!

Anyway, going back to the animals, obviously since the European arrival, the situation has changed somewhat - sheep and cows are all over the place and it's a well-worn fact that there are 10 times as many sheep here than humans. Other animals introduced, include the New Zealanders favourite - the possum, of which, thanks to me, there is one less here. Now in Australia the possum is an endangered species, protected by law - in New Zealand, they actively aim to splatter them if they dare venture onto the road. So, in Australia, I would have been fined for running over the thing - here they'll probably give me a medal! They are an active pest and along with the Chappell brothers are regarded as Australia's worst crime against New Zealand. Similar to Oz, the Kiwi's have a problem with rabbits - at Easter they have their own variation on the Easter Bunny hunt - they really do go hunting - in Otago province, there's a fairly big prize for the person who can bag the most bunnies over a 48 hour period - you gotta love this lot!

So now I bid farewell to the South Island - for shear natural beauty, this place takes the breath away - if you haven't seen LOTR, it's worth getting out on DVD just to see what this place is like - and if you ever get the chance, make the trek here - it's worth it (but you have to like scenery!!).