The Glaciers and Hokitika

Trip Start Sep 11, 2008
1
38
87
Trip End Jun 05, 2009


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of New Zealand  , South Island,
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

We drove up from Wanaka past beautiful Lake Hawea, stopping at the Blue Pools which believe it or not are blue and crystal clear. We went walking or tramping as they call it here at Haast Pass, stopped at the Thunder Falls and then Haast (population 300) to go to the beach. The water was freezing though so no swimming, also a few shark attcks off Oz and NZ recently so we didn't fancy it much. We drove on to Knights Point lookout where we could see a beach full of seals then to Fox Glacier (population 100ish). We stayed at a nice little hostel, Ivory Towers or Fawlty Towers as I called it but it was good enough for one night.
The next day we drove up the short road then walked along the track to Fox Glacier itself. 2 Aussie guys were killed a couple of days before as they ignored the warning signs and walked upto the terminal face where 100 tonnes of ice fell on them as they had their photo taken. One was still buried at the time as they had to wait for the ice to melt to get him out, quite eerie thinking theres a body under there. A few days later on the TV news was the Prime Minister John Key speaking out against their hire car company who had kindly not charged the family for late fees on their hire car but fined them $2000 for loss of keys and towing as the keys were still in the buried guys pocket. Nice.
After that we drove to the more popular but less scenic Franz Josef Glacier for a quick look. The guided tours were expensive and just involved stepping on the glacier, to climb inside it cost a fortune and we didn't want to get killed so we just looked from afar. It clouded over after that so we couldn't go to Lake Matheson for the picture everyone gets of the snow capped mountains reflected in the still lake but never mind, we can't do all the tourist sights. Instead we went to the beach, less than 20 mins away from the glaciers and it was scorching hot. We walked round the nice blue lagoon at Okarito and saw some rare herons. Further up the road at Pukekura (population 2) we stopped at the Bushmans Centre which was great, loads of sexist signs on the walls and funny redneck stuff. I tried a Possum pie, helping to save the Kiwi and other flightless birds by eating the vermin. Across the road at the Puke Pub their motto is "You kill em we grill em" referring to the roadkill which they serve. Volvoed Venison, Headlight Delight and various possum dishes, it wasn't open though or I would have tried something wierd.
We stayed the night at Hokitika a fairly "local" (ie redneck) town where we ate the local delicacy Whitebait patties which are unlike British whitebait, little eel things in an eggy patty, nice but not great. We also had Blue Cod and Turbot from the chippy which were great, sitting in our room at an average hotel watching Die Hard. Classy. The beach was covered in driftwood with black sand and someone had made a cool sculpture of the word Hokitika out of driftwood (which was wrecked by kids next day). We only stayed one night luckily as we had to get to Christchurch to return the car the next day.
Print this entry