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Published: February 10th 2013
We left Nelson first thing in the morning and headed towards the west coast. We stopped at a place called Cape Foulwind (named by Cpt Cook after his ship was blown off course here) to see the Fur Seal colony. We managed to spot a couple of pups, but I think we arrived around feeding time, so all the mothers had gone out fishing. We continued south down the coast and our lunch stop was at the "famous"? Punakaiki Pancake Rocks. We had a picnic in the sunshine and had a quick walk to see the rocks before getting back on the coach. They are formed by the erosion of limestone layers in the rock (did I mention I got an A for GCSE Geography?) I had to explain to Hazel that they look like stacks of pancakes, not each rock formation being like a pancake. (I put this down to a blonde moment).
Later that day, we arrived in Greymouth and to say that the place was like a ghost-town would be an understatement (sorry to disappoint you Adrian). There was no one about and everything was pretty much closed for Waitangi Day (a public holiday to commemorate the
founding of modern New Zealand - Happy Waitangi Day to you too Kat!)...we can only hope they were off doing something fun somewhere else, although it didn't look like much fun happened in Greymouth very often! We considered watching a film in our room, but as it was so sunny, we decided on a walk out to the beach. The beach was stoney and had a lot of drift wood dumped about half way up, so was not very appealing. The sea on the west coast of New Zealand is much more choppy than that on the east, so we watched the waves crash against the knackered pier which we were standing on for a while before heading back to the hostel. (Thanks to Jo, Rob, Christine for the warning about Greymouth and ensuring we didn't spend longer there than we needed to...i.e. just the compulsory one night).
The next morning, we headed off bright and early to Franz Josef. We had decided not to do any arranged glacier acitivities but went for a walk out to the face of the glacier. Apparently a big chunk fell off last year, and so you can't really get very close, but
it was still good to see, and pretty impressive. The sun came out towards the end of our time there as well, so we got fantastic views to the top of the glacier. We had stopped at a local coffee shop before we braved the 10km round trip to the glacier and were so impressed with the size of the burgers that they served that we went back there for dinner. We were absolutely stuffed by the time we were done, especially Mark who had tucked into a milkshake as well!
I also need to point out here that Mark and I spent our nights in Greymouth and Franz Josef avoiding the fun organised by the bus driver for the group (which is tricky when there are only two places to go in town, and there are a load of 'Brits abroad' getting to know each other in one of them)...think we might be too old for jugs of cider and hangovers on long-distance buses!
After our sensible early night in Franz Josef (a 10k walk and a glass of red wine are pretty sleep inducing at our age), we left early to get the bus to Fox
Glacier which is only 30 minutes drive from Franz Josef. Since it was Mark's birthday (28 years young) we checked into a B&B, as a delightful (and we would say well-earned) break from hostels. We then had brunch in a local cafe, whilst waiting for the 'heli-hike' we had booked and watching with dismay as the clouds rolled in. We were really lucky in the end, as we got nearly our full time out on the glacier, and were only helicoptered back out 15 minutes early (when the cloud was already 200m lower than the legal limit!).
The build up for the hike begins down on the ground when you are given these massive leather boots to wear. You then jump in the helicopter and fly up to the glacier, with a swoop past the very top of the glacier and some of the mountains nearby. When you land, you get given crampons and a lesson in how to put them on...we had a bit of a linguistically challenged group (we were the only couple in a group of 12 not from China), so it took a while to get everyone sorted... you then start following the guide as
he picks out a route across the ice and chips out steps for you to follow using his pick axe. This bit was absolutely fantastic; we went under and over all of the hills in the ice, and Mark even went through a small tunnel in the ice and out the other side! The gap was only just big enough, so no backpack, and it's quite un-nerving when there are tonnes of ice melting and creaking above you. There were lots of "Pressure Arches" in the ice to crawl into, which are formed as the top of the glacier runs downhill faster than the lower part and therefore causes ripples in the ice sheet.
We'd just enjoyed watching our guide trying to explain to a tiny chinese lady with no grasp of english why it was a bad idea to pose for a photo whilst pick-axing at the top of an ice arch which she was standing on, when he decided to call time for safety reasons. The clouds had moved in and it was time to head back, so we jumped back into the helicopter and flew back to the base.
Despite losing the final 15 minutes
on the glacier, the trip was well worth it - seeing the top of the glacier from above was fantastic, and the walk we did across (and under) the ice was absolutely amazing. Never done anything like that before and definitely a once in a lifetime birthday.
That evening we headed to the best rated restaurant in Fox (The Last Kitchen), after an apero (pre-dinner beverage) in a pub and waited for only 10 minutes to get seated on a table in the corner. After being ignored for about half-an-hour and not even offered a drink, we decided we would find somewhere else to eat, as we were seeing an alternate meaning in the restaurant's name. We went back to the pub up the road and had really good steak burgers with pints of beer.
Once we had eaten and it was hitting twilight we took a 20 minute walk into the rainforest in an attempt to see some glow worms. We were not disappointed. As the glacier heli-hike guide had told us, they live in the tree roots and can easily be seen when a tree has toppled over. We tried photos with slightly more success than
the caves this time, as you could easily see the silky threads too.
The next morning we headed down to Lake Matheson, after being encouraged by Joanna who said that it was really pretty down there. There is a short walk to the lake and first thing in the morning the water is so still that you can see a very clear reflection of Mount Tasman, Mount Cook and the Southern Alps. In fact if you take the photo and turn it upside down it is hard to know which way up it should go!
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kat
non-member comment
I've been here! So they are famous, just like Waitangi day.