THE KIWI KRONICLES

Day 64 & 65 Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier, Lake Matheson, Haast

Friday ( Day 64 ) was wet. It was raining when we woke up and it was raining when we went to bed. It wasn't a hard rain, more like a drizzle but a steady drizzle. If you spent any time outside you got soaked through in a hurry. So we decided not to get wet. Here endith the day.

Saturday couldn't have been a different or better day. The sun was shining and we could see the mountains behind us.

So we packed up made the short trip down the road to Franz Josef Glacier We stopped first at an overview and then drove down to the access point where we could walk out. The trip out and back was around 90 minutes as we could not get any closer than 50 feet from the glacier. The glacier is 12 kilometers long and is 19 kilometers from the Tasman Sea. Despite the fact that it has shrunk considerably over the years it has been growing since 2007 at a growth rate of 70cm per day. However scientists predict it will lose 5 km of it length and 38% of its mass by 2100.

View of Franz Josef Glacier

On our way to Fox Glacier we made a slight detour and stopped in to have a look at Lake Matheson. The lake is also called Reflection Lake as it is well known for its reflected views of Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. The time of day and conditions were not right for us to seen any type of reflection. However, it was a nice little one hour hike out and back to reflection point.

Lake Matheson

Kiwi Rod

Trail to Lake Matheson

The wetlands around the lake supports a lot of birds and we could certainly hear them. The only one that was willing to pose for us was the New Zealand pigeon. Food must be plentiful for them, they are huge.

New Zealand Pigeon

We stopped in the village of Fox Glacier and had lunch. The village with a population of 259 is here mainly to support the tourists visiting the glacier. There is also some farming done in the area. The walk out to the glacier again took about 90 minutes but we could get within 100 meters as this glacier is much more volatile than Franz Josef Glacier.

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier

Glacier reached summit in 1600's

The drive from Fox Glacier to Haast was pretty interesting but after three hikes we did not have a lot in us. We were not that tired that we couldn't enjoy the scenery as it was pretty spectacular. There was a mixture of farmland, hills and mountains with the occasional view of the coast. We stopped and took pictures at Bruce’s Bay which is about halfway between the glacier and Haast.

Beach at Bruce's Bay

We also stopped at Knights Point Lookout which gave us view of both the north and south coasts.

View from Knights Point

We made the stop at the lookout a short one as the sandflys were out in force. They are nasty little #$%$#%*s.

When arriving in Haast we expected a larger community as it seemed that way from our maps. However, we found out that Haast has around 300 residents and they are spread over three Haast's. Haast Beach, Haast Junction and Haast Township. The entire Haast region is fairly isolated from the rest of the island and up until 1950 it was even more isolated. That was when the first road came over Haast Pass connecting it with Lake Wanaka and Queenstown. The northern route from Fox Glacier was completed in 1965.

We found a grocery store and a campsite in that order and called it a night. It was another in a line of great days.

Day 62 & 63 Greymouth, Hokitika, Fran Joseph Glacier

It's December 1st, which means we have been in New Zealand for 2 full months. It has been a glorious two months and we are wondering where the time went. I guess what they say is true, time moves fast for busy people and we have been busy. I have done another map to show where we have travelled to date. The black outline was our October travels and the red line is November.

Black for October, Red for November

In outlining and looking at the map it made us realize how much we have done and that we should be tired. Well, we are and it came to roost this morning. We woke up in Greymouth to a very overcast day with little or no ceiling. We had planned to go hiking but as the view would be severely hampered we decided to move on down the highway. In retrospect it was a good idea. We found out later that we would have not been allowed to stay in the camp as everything is full. Everything in town is full. There is a memorial service being held for the 29 miners who lost their lives in the Pike River Mine accident. People are coming from all over the Country. It is a very sad place to be. Our thoughts and prays go out to all the families affected by this disaster.

We left town and stopped a short way down the highway in Hokitika. Hokitika came to life as a gold mining town 1864 but today is mainly a tourist town. Greenstone or Jade is found near here and carving has become an important local industry. You can actually find pieces of greenstone on the beach, especially after some rough weather.

Looking for Greenstone

We stopped in here mainly to go to the National Kiwi Center. We did get to see a Kiwi alive and well, but picture taking was not allowed. The only other thing of interest in the center was a large tank of Eels, some of them 150 years old. Ugly things. We walked around Hotikita and took a few pictures before continuing on to Franz Josef Glacier.

Hokitika

The drive to the glacier was a nice drive but we were missing a good part of the scenery. The cloud cover came down quite low on the face of the mountains cutting off our view. Occasionally we could see through some of the coverage and get a glimpse of the mountains behind.

It was during our drive to Franz Josef Glacier that we realized that maybe we had been pushing it a little too hard. We decided we needed a bit of a rest, so we are going to stay here for 2 or 3 days and just lay low. It will feel good.

Thursday (Day 63) was a rest day. We are in a very nice little campsite called Rain Forest Retreat Holiday Park which is located right in the village.

Heading out for our walk

It's a good place to rest up. The only energetic thing we did today was to take an afternoon stroll through the village. That didn't take very long as the village is quite small. It is here strictly to support the visitors to the glacier. We returned to our campsite and just relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

It was early evening when we got our first look at the mountains surrounding the village. I think it is Mt. Cook but I will have to verify that in the morning. It is pretty amazing what a few hours will make. The first shot I took around 3:30 PM and the second shot I took at 6:30 PM.

Taken at 3:30PM

Taken at 6:30PM

Tomorrow, if it is sunny, we are going to walk up to the glacier. If it is another overcast day we may just do nothing. Decisions, Decisions.

Day 61 Cape Foulwind, Tuaranga Bay Seal Colony, Denniston Mines, Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, Greymouth.

One of the things we had wanted to do yesterday was to drive up to the old Denniston mine site but we ran out of time. We are going to backtrack and do it today but first we took a short drive down the road from where we stayed last night. The destination was Cape Foulwind and then onto Tauranga Seal Colony.

Cape Foulwind was named by Captain James Cook on one of his voyages. He named it Cape Foulwind in 1770 when he encountered some nasty weather when rounding the cape. We walked up to the lighthouse and beyond in order to get a good view and to take pictures.

Lightouse at Cape Foulwind

Part of Cape Foulwind

Cape Foulwind

When we got back to the parking lot we ran into these guys. They are Wekas, one of about four flightless birds left in New Zealand. They are protected by the NZ government but are considered a pest by everyone else. One lady told us that they kept coming into her house and eating her cat’s food.

Weka

The seal colony was only a short way down the coast at Tauranga Bay. There weren’t a lot of seals present but they were fun to watch. The scenery of the beach and islands was also pretty nice.

Beach in Tauranga Bay

Wall Island

You talking to me.

I don't care how much you beg.

When I say no, I mean no.

You tell em girl.

We could have stayed and watched the seals for hours but we had to push on.

We backtracked in order to take the road up to the remains of the old Denniston Mine. The mine was operational from 1879 to 1967 and at one time in the early 20^th century Dennison’s population was close to 2000. It is still a settlement, however, as of the last census less than 50 people lived there. It is on the small Mount Rochfort Plateau in the Papahaua Range and is 600 meters above sea level.

The method in which the coal was brought down the mountain was pretty ingenious and very dangerous. It was the called the 8th wonder of the world by many in the mining industry. In the early years the only way to take people and goods to or from Denniston was in the wagons on the incline. At first the conditions or the cold uninviting plateau involved such hardship that it was regarded as no place for women, but the pioneering spirit was strong in New Zealand women in the nineteenth century. Soon they began to join their men folk who were mining in Denniston. Some found the trip up in the trucks on the incline so terrifying that despite the hardships in living on the plateau they did not come down for years.

Start of the incline

One of the original trucks

View of the first incline

The view from the top was pretty nice, however the elevation was much too high to get any real definition in our pictures.

The drive down the mountain was fun, I only scared Kathy a couple of times. Once we were on the main highway we pointed the van south towards Greymouth, our planned stopping point for the night.

The terrain from Westport until we reached the Paparoa National Park was mostly farm land with the Tasman Sea on one side and the mountains on the other. The change was pretty dramatic when we hit the park. The coastal road through the park has been voted one of the top ten scenic drives in the world. The only problem was there were not that many places to stop to take pictures. We know now that the only way to properly see it is to hike it. If time permits we would like to come back here.

Pararoa National Park

Paparoa National Park

The highlight of the park is at the town village of Punakaiki which is home to the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. The Pancake Rocks have a pancake look to them which is really the layering of the limestone. The Blowholes are a number of vertical holes that the sea with burst through at high tide. The two features together make quite a spectacle.

We arrived in Punakaiki about 3 hours before high tide so we didn’t get to see the water bursting through the blowholes. We thought about staying until we realized that even if we did stay the sun would be right in our eyes which would limit our visibility. We were also told that they don’t always work as the direction of the tide also has something to do with it. So we had to be content with the pictures we did have.

It was getting late and we still had a few more miles to go before we hit Greymouth so we hit the road. Upon our arrival at Greymouth we went straight to the Holiday Park and settled in for the night. We were tired, very tired after another great day in New Zealand.