Thursday 21st June 2012
Woke early again with less vigour than usual.. Perhaps due to the previous night's bar hopping around Queenstown. C'est la vie! Call it the cold, call it the holiday feeling or trying to re-enact that other famous NZ movie Once Were Warriors - but there has been a modicum of alcohol consumption most days this trup. Probably shouldn't be admitting that with clients listening..
We pulled away from the lovely Lakeview Holiday park and had a fab breakfast on the go from FergBakery, neighbour to our regular haunt FergBurger. Our mission - Hokitika on the West coast, taking in Haast and Fox and Franz Jozef glaciers on the way.
We bid a fond farewell to Queenstown to face the reverse version of the perilous road descent of a few nights earlier. Winding steeply up hairpin turns to the lookout at 1076m - worth it for the amazing dawn view this time.
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| View from the top of the Gibbston highway (the treacherous climb), between Queenstown and Wanaka |
Today was a driving day. Not much to report besides some of the most beautiful drives ever. Even if it was in a bus.
Passed back through Wanaka - still our most loved town of the trip. Still the postcard image of lake Wanaka and the mountains behind, though today we got it with the latter in blue rather than grey.
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| Lake Hawea |
Continued up towards the Haast Pass, a passageway through the Alps which separated the east and west parts of the island. The West is more wild and wet apparently, a relatively narrow strip of fertile land in between the Tasman and the 2-3km high alpine barrier. The moist air off the Tasman chills and freezes over the mountains, meaning somewhere like Milford gets 5-7m of rain per year, whilst higher up on the slopes it gets to 10m per year (that's a good 300mm per day on average... Imagine that Sydneysiders when we start to drown in 30mm!) and near the peaks, about 15m per year. Wet, bro!
Anyway, as we approached the Haast pass from the east, in the shadow of the mountain range the ground started to freeze over like some evil spectre had passed by. Fields of green kale were increasingly interspersed with fields of frost. Perhaps it's a popular crop here. Still there were sheep and cattle grazing amongst the ever-whitening meadows.
At the head of Lake Wanaka the lake gave way to its inlet glacial streams, braiding their way east downslope, and a series of farms. A few kilometres further up and the light frosting over the fields and road verge had turned into packed snow drifts. We had the eerie but magnificent vista of driving through snowfields only minutes after driving past regular farmland. And without any increase in elevation. It was odd but reasoned that it was the shadowing effect of the mountain range that didn't allow the sun to reach the narrow valleys.
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| Snow fields leading to the Haast pass |
Bit scared as the snowdrifts got deeper. Have never driven through snow before and snow chains freak me out. As for the road, all I could see was panes of black glass where matte black bitumen should have been. You're not apparently supposed to see black ice but once again when you're looking for it the mind works overtime. Scary!
To the roadsides, wherever a ray of sunlight pierced the mountains and trees around, the air began to steam with melting snow. Signs, fences, the road itself, all steaming in the patchy sunlight.
Plunged past forests up towards the pass, littered with snowfall. Cresting the pass (bit uneventful) we began the descent into Western NZ. The frozen road and forest didn't let up, but the rivers gushing green down glacial beds were something to behold.
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| Haast river just past the pass |
Came out at Haast after a long windy descent. Complete change in environment again. We were now seaside and surrounded by lush temperate rainforest to one side, palms and ferns to the ocean side of the road.
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| NZ west coastline ... utterly different to the alpine roads we'd just driven on |
Couldn't get sick of driving here. Utterly different worlds in only 100km.
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| Knights Lookout on the west coast |
Stopped at Knights Lookout, awed at the semi-tropical coastline. Completely wild around the west coast though, apparently only linked up by road to the rest of the island in the 1960's due to the treacherous seas rolling in from the Antarctic, high winds, constant flooding and rains from the natural windbreak of the mountains so close to the ocean.
Got to Fox Glacier about 2pm after 5 hrs of driving and stops. Parked near an info kiosk that the navWoman had pointed out. Walked down to get info and prices on some tours or helicopter rides. Returned to Bertha only to find someone had clamped the wheel. In 10mins!
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| Gut-wrenching holiday sight #12 - some dickhead clamping your wheel |
Turned out to be the jerk owner of the hotel and competing info kiosk whose carpark we had parked in, believing it to be the place signposted for public campervan parking. Berated by this bored and self important Kiwi for parking on his private property, how would he like it if he parked in our driveway. $40 to remove the clamp. AG fuming, argued for a while then stalked off to take photos of the van and the clamp fully intending creating a big furore to other tourists online later on. Ed nicely intervened and offered to just pay it and be done with it.
Eventually Ed's niceness got him down to $20, then after we had paid, then stayed to discuss options for looking at the glacier, realised that the man just wanted to feel important. It was a pretty dead town with hardly any cars on the road during our 5 hour drive, so we think he was just bored and wanted to talk to people. Odd way of going about it! And who in their right mind owns a wheel clamp?? After chatting for a whole he told us to wait around, and returned with our $20 saying we were good blokes. An odd fellow and odder experience. We were no poorer except for the amount of time we had left to actually explore fox glacier.
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| The terminal face of Fox Glacier up close - it's not pretty |
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| The sign speaks for itself. One day that Fox Glacier will just all melt at once and sweep you away... |
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| Some fools in front of the glacier. It stopped moving long enough for us to take this snapshot. |
The glacier itself, from the head of the 30min walk to its terminal face, is this dirty block of twisted ice sitting in a steep valley strewn with gazillions of rocks. It sat in its frozen splendour and did little to entertain our demands for it to move, crack or at least indicate some form of excitement at our being there. It was not to be. Forming between 1700-2800m above sea level over many years, the compacted snow that makes its way 12km down to end up melting 300m above sea level into a temperate jungle, cared little for our insignificant presence. It did make a teasing cracking sound for a short spell before resuming its deliberate cold silence.
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| The road home - well, to Bertha from the glacier |
There were helicopter and plane options for seeing the whole expanse of the glacier and its neve (upslope feeding area covered in snow) plus Mt Cook again, but they were going to be a big dent in the budget. We made do with the free view of its very base then headed off to Franz Josef glacier about 45 min away.
By the time we got to the FJ town it was getting dark again, with no real options left to see the glacier.
Decided to drop anchor and stay in the campervan site in FJ town itself. Tomorrow back to Christchurch and another day in the car.
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