One and a half glacier and a picturesque lake all in one day

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We are visiting the part of New Zealand where the rainfall is measured in metres rather than centimetres yet we didn’t have one drop of rain fall on us today.

We awoke to another beautiful West Coast day.OK there was a little bit of cloud here and there but the forecast for the day looks good for walking.

After another lie in we breakfasted and prepared ourselves for departure. Although before we leave Franz Josef our niece, Catherine, has invited us to ‘go behind the scenes’ and visit the area in the Wildlife Centre where the Kiwi eggs are incubated, hatched and the chicks raised before they are released back into the wild.

Catherine gave us a personal tour outlining the process from the arrival of the egg from a Kiwi nest in the forest through to 3 live chicks that had been all hatched within the last 3 weeks.

On a TV screen is a live picture of an egg that is in the process of hatching with small cracks visible on the top of the egg. Catherine would like to see this live TV picture on the Wildlife Centre’s Face book page and we said we would support her idea via a Face book comment so the boss would see it and do what is necessary so the rest of the world can see this part of the Kiwi recovery programme in action.

We headed off towards the Franz Josef glacier, about 4km,from the village crossing the rather dodgy temporary Bailey Bridge that was built after the original bridge over the Waiho River was washed out about 20 years ago in a major flood. All this seems a long time ago and yet the temporary bridge has still not been replaced. Time for the roading authorities to get into action.

The glacier which is one of only two temperate zone glaciers in the world that is readily accessible to tourists. The glacier had receded a long way back than we remember from the last time we visited about 10 years ago and we had a good hour and a half return walk from the car park to get to the point where it was safe to walk to. The pathway was very well formed and it was an easy stroll until the last few hundred metres when there were some relatively steep grades to climb and a short distance of 200 metres were signs informed us not to stop for fear of an avalanche of rock sweeping across the path and carrying us away to the river below.

Just behind the ‘no stopping’ area was a massive chunk of what had looked like rock with gravel on top from a distance but actually turned out to be ice steadily melting. It was a few hundred metres onto the glacier face so this piece must have dropped off some time ago and won’t be around for much longer.

There is plenty to view as you walk along the path from the glacier in front of you to admiring the steep walls of the gorge and waterfalls tumbling down to help fill the river.

The cloud cleared almost completely by the time we reached the viewpoint to the glacier and as we walked back to the car park the cloud rolled in again demonstrating just how fortunate we were with the timing of our visit.

One of the pleasant things we find to do while walking is acknowledging the other people we are sharing the pathway with and today was no different with many other nationalities exchanging a cheery hello or getting a ‘look’ from us if they didn’t say hello. Such were the variety of nationalities we could have experimented with all the languages that we knew how to greet people in.

A woman in one such group of people did take us by surprise when she looked at us with that look that says ‘I know you’.

We stopped and she rattled off a town in Queensland we had never heard of together with a post code, which meant nothing to us, and after a short discussion she realised that we weren’t who she thought we were. Amazing to think though that we have lookalikes at this obscure town near Bundaberg in Queensland.

With lunch time approaching we headed back into the village to the European Bakery and got ourselves some lunch to have in a picnic spot along the way. In the absence of a New World supermarket bakery cabinet that has met our needs the past two days we were still able to buy a Pain au Chocolat and a Plum Jam Danish for sweets along with a couple of savoury items.

It was a short drive through to Fox Glacier and recalling the beauty of Lake Matheson on previous visits we drove down the road from Fox Township and stopped for lunch in the car park planning the early afternoon walk around the small bush fringed lake.

With a good size lunch devoured we felt the need to take the round the lake walk rather than the shorter walk to and from a lookout platform with views of Mt Cook.

The pathway was very well formed and a very easy stroll through dense native forest. Part way along there were some reflections visible in the lake that is well known for giving perfect reflection of Mt Cook in the early morning before any wind gets up.

Lake Matheson has to be one of the most picturesque lakes on the West Coast and the hour and half walk around it was a delight complete with birds including grey warblers and relatively rare South Island Robin showing off.

At the half way point there is an elevated viewing platform that gives views down the small lake towards the Southern Alps and just like this morning the cloud parted just at the right time for us to get a few minutes of the top on Mt Cook in our camera lens.Boy, have we been fortunate on this holiday with the weather behaving just when we wanted it to.

Although the cloud had come back down over the Alps as we drove away from Lake Matheson we still drove up the river valley to the car park that gives access to the Fox Glacier.

Again though, this glacier had also receded further than what we had recalled from our last visit and the sign at the start of the track leading to the glacier viewpoint said it was an hour return away.

With the cloud obscuring the top of the glacier face we stopped our walk at a vantage point where we had a reasonable view of the glacier that was in sight without taking on the last 100 metres which from a distance appeared to be a very steep climb to the viewing platform.

There were fewer people stopping in at Fox Glacier but we still gave our cheery ‘hello’ to those we passed on the trail and got a 100% response which was better than at Franz Josef.

Back out on the main highway we had a bit over 100km to drive to our overnight stop at Haast before we cross over into Otago tomorrow via the lowest road pass in the Southern Alps.

The highway is cut through rain forest where is doesn’t pass through farmland and passes two more picturesque lakes at Paringa and Moeraki before it climbs to Knights Point where there are expansive views of the coast and Tasman Sea.

It was just a couple of kilometres from Knights Point where the two road crews constructing the road from the north and the south eventually met to complete the highway in 1965.Before then there was no way a motorist could drive directly from the West Coast to Otago via the Haast Pass.

We couldn’t recall the Haast Township after our last trip all those years ago where our motel was located.

For the second night in a row among our fellow guests are self guiding parties of Chinese tourists who ate their dinner outside the door of the unit.

We opted for the Hard Antler Bar and Restaurant devouring the Fishermans Basket for two and a couple of Montheiths to wash it down.

Tomorrow looks to be another fine day and we shall probably reacquaint ourselves with Jacksons Bay which is as far south as you can drive on the Coast before we head over the Pass to Otago and the thriving metropolis of Queenstown.

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