New Zealand Part 4 - The beautiful west coast
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
11
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Westport,
South Island,
New Zealand
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A-Just us!
We made the right decision as the next day the weather changed and the mountains were lost in mist, followed over the next few days with snow and rain. On the morning of our overnight cruise, before heading off to Milford Sound we had to hire snow chains to be allowed to drive on the road, as you can be turned back if you are not carrying any. The journey which takes about 3 hours is a stunning drive, with various points to stop, to take in walks to glacial lakes, waterfalls etc. The streams running down from the mountains were crystal clear and the views amazing and no we didn't need the snow chains, thankfully. We also encountered the Kea's, which are mountain parrots, and like most parrots they are pretty confident birds and try to eat the rubber on the cars, we had to drive off with them on the roof of the car!
Mid-afternoon we arrived at Milford Sound and boarded our ship, excited by the prospect of having a proper bed for the night, our own bathroom and meals cooked for us. We weren't disappointed, munching on freshly made muffins as soon as we left, yummy! We headed out of port past Mitre Peak which stands at 1682 metres, towards the furthest end of the sound. What's a sound you may ask, well, a sound has been carved out by river erosion eventually meeting the sea, however, although called a sound, Milford is actually a fiord, which is when a glacier has done the carving, instead of water
B-The drive to Milford
. When discovered, Milford was thought to have been a Sound and although wrong, the name stuck. When we reached the far end of the sound, we boarded smaller boats to get a closer look at some wildlife and saw a few cute penguins. Like a lot of wildlife in NZ, the penguins are in danger from introduced predators, i.e., possums and stoats, which eat their habitats and steal their eggs. When I say introduced, that's us Europeans, who, a few hundred years ago brought in new species and NZ is now in a constant battle to protect their native plants and animals from such species.
In the evening we anchored in the middle of the sound to protect us from being battered by the sea overnight and had a full 3 course meal. After dinner, one of the crew gave a presentation on Milford, here's a few bits of what I remember........Milford is one sound amongst several in the area and the area as a whole is called Fiordland. It's a very wet area, getting 6 metres average rain fall a year, to help put that in perspective England doesn't even get 1 metre of average rainfall per year and during the presentation we were shown how Milford is transformed in heavy rain with waterfalls flowing all around off the sheer cliffs. Further up the east coast of the south island is the wettest place in NZ, which gets 13 metres average rainfall a year! This is Toby's third visit to Milford and its not rained on him yet, so he was a bit disappointed, never mind, it's a good excuse to come back again
C-Get the Kea off our luxury car!
! Milford does have several year round waterfalls, some taller than Niagra Falls, although, not having seen Niagra, I couldn't be certain. Due to all the rain, the top of the sea water is always covered by a layer of freshwater, which allows some sea life to live at much shallower depths than normal. It's a photographers dream I imagine, its difficult to get an ugly shot here and even our little camera with its rubbish zoom, captured some fab shots. It was and still is my favourite place we've seen so far. The next morning after a full cooked breakfast, we headed out to the stern of the boat, which the captain put right under a waterfall, as Milford is very deep even at the sides. The trip was topped off, by seeing dolphins who played in the wake of the boat.
After, another, picturesque drive back to Te Anua, we headed to Queenstown, the adrenalin capital of NZ, although, we didn't do any activities as we are holding out to do some activities elsewhere, plus there seemed to be a high percentage of people with a body part in a cast, which was a little off putting!
Instead we watched some bungy jumping, at the worlds first bungy site and surprisingly, throwing yourself off a bridge on a piece of rubber is very popular and it was good fun to watch to.
D-Roadside waterfall on Milford Rd
Here, we also enjoyed a night out and even had to wait to be seated in a restaurant, fancy that, it was a first in NZ, since it had been so quite! Whilst here we did the usual walk around the town as per our trusty guide book, took a gondola up to a viewing area over the town and met up with our Kiwi friends, Lee and Brian. Lee and Brian live in Cromwell about an hour from Queenstown, we had a great weekend with them, reminiscing about our trip in South America and being shown around their area. They are lucky enough to be surrounded by mountains, vineyards and fruit farms. We visited one of the vineyards called 'The Wooing Tree' for lunch and of course a spot of wine tasting. They produce some very nice award winning wines, so look out for it back in the UK, as they export there. Lee and Brian were the perfect hosts and treated us to home cooked meals and we even had our own little wing on one side of the house. We hope to be able to return the favour one day or maybe go back and let them look after us again! Thanks again Lee and Brian.After leaving Lee and Brian we headed to Wanaka and the weather finally came good. We enjoyed a few days of sun here and hired bikes taking a ride along the lake. As Toby has just reminded me, the seats on the bikes where rock hard resulting in butt ache, but it helped to burn off some more of those pies we've eaten! Another highlight here was the quirky cinema. Its small, seating maybe 60 people, or so, and you sit on sofas and even have the choice of sitting in an old car. There's an interval, where you can grab a meal or just pick up a freshly baked cookie, as I did or a bottle of beer as Toby did. It was a pretty cool place and we need one of these at home, oh yeah, the film was pretty funny too, we watched 'In Bruges'.
So, on from Wanaka we took the Haast Pass, another scenic drive, sorry if that gets a bit boring, but its all so scenic
E-Crystal clear but icy cold river
. This drive was up and over the southern alps range of mountains, high sided valleys, lush forests and waterfalls round most corners. Out of range of radio, but that happened on most drives, having said that the classical music channel was always available, but we preferred to sing ourselves, than to listen to classical music! We arrived in the town of Fox Glacier where we spent the night, before waking early as planned the next morning to take a walk to Lake Matheson. However, the purpose of going to this lake early is to watch the sun rise and get a perfect mirrored reflection of the mountains on the lake. When we woke the weather wasn't great and we decided that the sunrise would be lost in cloud, so went back to sleep again! We went later instead to the lake, but it still wasn't perfect weather conditions, but it was a nice walk to the lake and we got a few shots, but nothing that comes close to the postcode picture of the lake, unfortunately. After our walk we headed to have a look at the Fox Glacier, which is one of two glaciers in this region. You can't get too close to the glacier without a guide as they are constantly moving. There were plenty of signs telling you where you could and couldn't go and that day we saw plenty of idiots ignoring the signs. A few months after we left, some people got crushed to death when one of the glacier fronts collapsed. Having said that, it seemed that every day the newspapers reported a death from an outdoor activity, climbing, canoeing, diving, jet boating, etc etc. It is a very outdoor country though and the wilderness is often unpredictable and claims the lives of many experienced people, as well as inexperienced people.
A few miles down the road is the other glacier, called Franz Josef, and a town named the same, that was our next stop
F-Thats our boat
. After a nights sleep here, the next day we took a half day guided climb on the Franz Josef glacier, which was very cool, but hard work for my little legs, like skiing, my legs muscles were fully woken after the climb! We climbed the glacier via pre carved ice steps with spikes (crampons) on our boots so not to slip. Its tiring and very steep, but amazing climbing up with ice walls either side and we got to go through a small ice cave. Both glaciers are melting but its unclear if they are receding or not, at the moment, but they have been receding since the earliest records were kept. Franz glacier from the front looks dirty due to an explosion from a build up of water behind a huge pile of rubble under the glacier a few years before. The water couldn't go down the hill, so it exploded up through the glacier!!After the glaciers we seemed to race up the rest of the west coast, with a night in Hokitika and another in Westport. Along the way stopping for a look at the Pancake rocks, which look like pancakes due to a type of weathering process to keep it simple! They are also known for their blowholes, which Toby explained about last time and although we were their at exactly the right time to see them blowing, the conditions were again against us! This was also where we bravely supported England in the rugby match against NZ in a local bar, I think we made the locals night, as England lost as usual and they had some real life 'poms' to take the mick out of!
I'll leave it there, next time Toby will wrap up the south island and take you back into the north island.
Here's hoping we're still keeping your interest, its hard work all this blogging!
