Ice Ice Baby

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Sorry about the lack of photos for this blog, we can't find any internet places that will accept our card reader!

Our next stop on our whirlwind tour of the South Island was Fox Glacier. One of two glaciers you can climb on the West Coast, we picked Fox to visit as it is supposedly easier to access, less crowded, and the killer reason, cheaper. We arrived in rain, not unheard of on the West Coast, and arranged to do a 'Nimble Fox' tour the following day. This was a 6-7 hour hike up to and then onto the glacier. I was muttering to myself at the prospect of another 6 hour hike and carefully questioned the receptionist whether there were any staircases that might be devillish in origin, to be told there were steps up to the glacier but once you were on it the hard work was done. Thus the following morning we set off equipped with hiking boots, mittens and woolly hats. After a slightly breathless climb up said steps cut into the hillside next to the glacier we arrived at the somewhat grubby side of the glacier. Here we had to don exciting crampons and gained a wooden walking pole with spike in the end. Feeling very professional, we set off onto the ice. The glacier itself is pretty big, 13km and advancing about 20cm a day (it actually advances a metre a day, but 80cm of this melts away), and like nothing you have ever seen before. Once onto the ice our guide hacked steps out for us to climb on with his ice axe and we slowly ascended the glacier. For once I was actually in my element as Andy the guide instructed us that it was best to walk flat footed, having some of the flattest feet in the Southern Hemisphere I actually found it relatively easy to walk along (although admittedly so did Alex with his properly formed foot arches, bah!) And so we climbed, slowly donning our mittens and gloves as we got progressively higher and colder, wending our way past ice blue crevasses, ice caves and moulins (little pools full of melted ice water) pausing to eat lunch and admire the view. Having climbed pretty far up, the furthest the day hike had been for years apparantly, we turned round and slowly made our way back down with the cloud closing in eeirly around us. Once at the bottom we paused to admire the terminal face of the glacier, and the terminal stupidity of fellow visitors who, despite warning signs threatening imminent death if they got too close to the glacier, still climbed over the ropes and wandered over to take photos. Mind that two tonne of ice heading directly for you stupid people, emergency services don't endanger their own lives for people who ignore warnings. Having had a thoroughly enjoyable day we headed back to town and out to dinner where we could observe the antics of adolescent Kea, or alpine parrots, who let out the most unearthly cries as they push each other off buildings and strip the wipers from your windscreen.

The next day saw us continuing our journey south, where we wound our way through multiple hairpin bends clinging to the mountain sides whilst admiring the spectacular scenary. We stopped with the intention of viewing Mount Cook reflected in Lake Mattheson, but instead saw the bottom of Mount Cook and a lot of cloud reflected in Lake Mattheson. Nevermind. As we progressed on the weather cleared and bright blue sky replaced low cloud. This saw us stopping every few kilometres to photograph the snow capped mountains and deep blue lakes that make up the very picturesque journey to Queenstown. Once there we booked in for a few nights and signed up for the last few adventure activities we hadn't tried so far. This included horse riding for me, which I duly undertook the following day on a nice horse called Ziggy and led by a nice girl whose Mum lives in Haslemere. Small, small world. Having been bitterly cold the previous night and in fact that morning, by the time I came to ride the sun had come out again and the place had warmed up. We took an hour long trail through small creeks and up St Kilda's hill overlooked by the Remarkable Mountains. Ziggy was very well behaved and I managed to stay onboard even when we cantered. Alex meanwhile had decided to lounge about the place that day in preparation for our jet boating tour booked for the following day.

First on the agenda for the following morning however was a trip up the Queenstown gondala to check out their luge. Having enjoyed the one in Rotarua so much we thought we'd give this one a go. Sadly, we were disappointed. For a start there were only 2 different tracks (there are 3 in Rotarua) the Scenic Track wasn't very scenic and there was a right old sourpuss manning the luge trolley collection point who told us off for helping ourselves to a luge trolley (we were just trying to help) which somewhat soured the mood. AND we had to wait nearly 20 minutes for our coffee afterwards. Queenstown luge I shake my walking stick at you! In the afternoon we headed out to Skippers Canyon to the original jet boating company, Shotover Jet. Jet boating is a clever marlarky, by pumping out 800 litres of water a minute they can literally speed through canyons on just 4 inches of water and turn on a sixpence, despite weighing 3 tonnes. This means that passengers get loaded on and equipped with life jackets and are then sped at 75-80km an hour up and down the canyon with the driver executing the ocassional 360 degree turn and liberally spraying his passengers with river water. It is fast and exiciting and made even better by the surrounding scenary.

Next day, before we set off for Te Anau, we called into the Kiwi and Birdlife Park to once again admire the funny Kiwis scooting and snuffling about in the dark and to look at other examples of native birds. We also caught a 40 minute conservation show which involved the keepers showing off different birds. The first bird we saw was a red crested parakeet called Oscar who flew between the different keepers in expert style. He was then returned to his house just above where the show was taking place. Later on, when a very colourful rainbow lorikeet called Bo was demonstrating his flying skills, Oscar could be seen folornly looking out of the window watching Bo's antics as if to sigh, "I was once the star of the show until that stupid Bo came along...." After the conservation show we were treated to a Maori concert where they performed various traditional songs and dances and also performed the Haka.

A couple of hours driving later and we arrived at Te Anua, our base for seeing Milford Sound. The following morning we set off down towards Fjordland, stopping at frequent intervals to marvel at the wonders of glacier shaped country. Stops included the Mirror Lakes, Homer tunnel and The Chasm, an area carved out by a pounding waterfall. We've seen some fantastic views driving round the South Island, but these took the biscuit. Once at Milford Sound we took a cruise out onto the Sound to admire towering mountains, some with the final traces of glacier clinging to them, and rainbow generating waterfalls. Our trip was further enhanced by the fact it was sunny, it rains 180 days of the year here, and there were relatively few people about. Beware of the sand flies though...

Next day we cut across the bottom of the south Island heading for Dunedin. On our way out of Te Anua we made a quick stop at the DOC wildlife centre where they have a captive breeding programme for the Takahe birds. These are brightly coloured birds, about the size of a large chicken, and there are only 200 left in the world. In actual fact, up until 1948 everyone thought they were extinct, so the fact that they are here at all is pretty cool. Once in Dunedin we booked up for more nature trips and the following day we headed out to see Yellow Eyed Penguins and Royal Albatross. The penguins can be seen on a private reserve where they have built a network of hides and tunnels which allow you to see the birds at close quarters. Although all of the chicks had now left the reserve and gone out to sea, we were able to see several adults who had come ashore to start their yearly moult. Two such penguins were a couple called Tim and Ange we who watched hop and waddle with some difficulty up the steep track, little wings spread for balance, from the beach, passed our hide and off to their house in the hillside in order to shed their feathers. Once they start their moult these penguins have to stay put for about a month as they are no longer waterproof and cannot go out to sea to fish. Thus we saw several adults, all quite skinny, sitting quite still surrounded by a pile of feathers. It is an extreme life being a penguin. After lunch we headed up the hill to the Royal Albatross Centre where again we were taken to an observatory to watch these magificant birds. This is the only mainland colony of albatross in the world so it was a great to watch them sitting on their nests with small fluffy white chicks poking out from underneath them, and to watch them wheel and glide about the sky with their massive 3 metre wing span (they only flap their wings when there is no wind) gangly legs dangling to assist with steering at low speed. Suitably impressed we headed back to our campsite.

And so we were on to our last leg of our NZ journey as we headed up to our final destination of Christchurch the next morning. We made our final roadtrip stop at a small beach called Moeraki where you can see a collection of perfectly round boulders on the beach. These boulders formed many years ago and were embedded into the cliff face. As the cliff face erodes the boulders fall out and land on the beach. All of the smaller ones got nicked years ago leaving just the massive ones behind for us to gawp at. Once we reached Christchurch we had a frenzy of washing, packing, getting haircuts and emailing Fiji before heading in to the elegent city centre on our final morning. We have driven over 6000 km in our trusty steed Monty but now it is time to hand him back and catch our first international flight in 7 weeks and head over to Fiji and the Yasawa Islands.

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Photos

Remember the programme 'Monkey'?
Moeraki boulders