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Published: August 6th 2007
My last entry touched on what it was like to be in the same place for a while and the good parts and the challenges that came along with that. Since then I've been moving about quite a bit and have had a wide variety of experiences. I'm currently in Picton, which will be my final stop on New Zealand's South Island before hopping on the ferry to go to Wellington on the North Island. I'll do my best to bring you on the journey from Queenstown to Picton...
I still had quite an apathetic approach to leaving "Queeny" and didn't even get out on the road to hitch until 3pm or so...not usually the best time to try to randomly catch a ride to another city. But since this is the world's easiest country to travel in, within 10 minutes I was wedged in the back seat (along with 2 boogie boards and a snowboard) of an SUV and on my way to Arrowtown (only 1/2 way to Wanaka) with some travelers from "Tazzy" (Tasmania). They dumped me in the middle of nowhere and it took all of 20 seconds for a Canadian and English girl to pick me
Top of Roy
Smiling...b/c I haven't yet done my painful descent.up and bring me the rest of the way right to my hostel. All for the affordable cost of $0. Gotta love the NZ (pronounced..."N Zed"...I still can't figure out why other english speaking countries say "Zed"?) way.
I'm not trying to bore all the readers out there with every detail of my days by specifying each car I'm in...but rather to help convey the variety of folks I come across and how easy it can be to go with the flow here. Right...so back to it.
Wanaka is another South Island ski town...basically a smaller version of Queenstown. My plan for one day there turned into two so that I could do a couple of hikes. The first was the Rob Roy Glacier. "A glacier?" you say? Yup...the South Island has many...several of which one can access quite easily. This one just has a walking track along side it...so no actual glacier walk...that would be the next stop on the journey. But before I get ahead of myself...my string of perfect weather basically came to an end this day as I was required to employ the use of all my rain gear to keep somewhat dry (and
by "somewhat dry" I mean "mostly wet"). Due to the weather, I really don't have any useful pictures of the Rob Roy Glacier, but it basically looked like a mountain with ice and snow near the top with clouds blocking the rest of the views. I bet it looks cool in good weather though. The highlight of the day was that from time to time I could hear crashing sounds from up on the ice & one of the times I looked up and saw large chunks of ice breaking off and crashing down to make a small sort of avalanche. Cool.
The next day was perfect weather for my day hike up Roy's Peak. A 1250m climb up a peak 6km from town (got a ride from some French rock climbers). Thankfully it wasn't too windy at the top and I spent almost 3 hrs up there taking in the amazing views...which I think are the best I've had to date in NZ. Then, in order to get down before dark (and b/c I thought I'd challenge myself), I decided to see how quickly I could get back down to the bottom. This may have been the dumbest
idea I've had since leaving the States. It took about 800m of descent and a few near spills before I gave into the multiple leg cramps that had developed in my legs and took it easy the rest of the way. All in all...it made the hike down more entertaining...but my ability to walk for the next two days was severely impaired. I'm not sure if it was worse, but the muscle stiffness was at least on par with how I felt the day after running a marathon a couple years ago. Oops. Thankfully my hostel was well equipped with bean bags and a showing of Casino Royale (surround sound & big 2 meter projection screen...nice) to help me recover.
The forecast called for more rain, so rather than trying to hitch and getting soaked, I booked a bus ticket to the next stop...two large dirty ice cubes called Fox and Franz Josef. (another travel coincidence...I met a guy on the Kepler track who was then at my hostel in Wanaka and then again on this bus...never know who you keep running into in this travel world).
We saw what appeared to be a streak of mist running between two peaks ... Abreast of Mount Cook, close inshore, we could see distinctly that it was an immense field of ice, entirely filling up the valley ... and running far down into the low land.
- Frances and Young, explorers from Canterbury in their ship's log,
1859
There are two glaciers in NZ that have all sorts of tours - Fox Glacier and Franz Josef. They're about 30mins apart and are 1/2 way up the west coast. The crazy thing about these is that they run right into rain forest...an odd thought to walk out of the rain forest and onto a glacier, eh?
One can click on the Fox/Franz links above for more info, but here's the quick rundown.
- Franz Josef is currently advancing at a rate of almost 2m per week...in a sense this ice is "back with a brand new invention."
- FJ has generally retreated in the last 250 years, but has been advancing for 20 of the last 23 years...perhaps an in-inconvenient truth? I'll have to ask Al Gore what he makes of this.
- Glaciers are big, bad, and can literally move mountains.
I was planning on doing one of the glacier walks, but when I went to sign up I saw something that seemed much cooler...ice climbing...book it. Due to the fact that my legs were still mainly not properly functional, I decided to wait another day to climb (that and they didn't do climbing
the next day). So I went with my roommates (Anne/Vermont and Ash/England - who had a car) to Fox for the day to poke around and see what we could see.
First was a walk around Lake Matheson - which provided great views of Mt. Cook (NZ's highest peak) and Mt. Tasman. I didn't actually post any pictures of the views that had reflections of these peaks in the lake (which is what the walk is famous for) b/c frankly I liked the non-lake pics better. But I digress...we drove up to the front of Fox and had a look at what basically looks like a dirty tongue of ice snaking its way through a valley. Cool, but the real fun was the next day on Franz Josef.
The next morning I showed up at the tour company at 7:45 with regained use of my legs and a desire to prove my climbing prowess. After charging my Visa a sizeable amount, I was given a set of blister-inducing plastic excuses for boots along with some other less painful gear and we (12 of us...me and 11 Kiwi Experience Bus people...basically a roving bunch of partying 19 yr olds
Ice Climbing
A tad underexposed...but it's me. primarily from the UK) got on the shuttle to take us to the Glacier.
The drawback of the FJ glacier is that one must walk about 30 mins before getting to the front (the 'terminal face') of the glacier. A brutal 30 mins in these poor excuses for footwear. We reached the terminal face, strapped on our crampons (spikey shoe thingies to give grip on ice for walking and climbing), and began the trek up the glacier. In a perfect world, a glacier would be all perfect white snow and blue ice, but due to the way that a glacier functions, it's basically a combination of ice & rock. Thus making it look like it needs a good washing. Higher up the glacier it is indeed perfect white snow and blue ice, but since we were stopping to climb, we never made it that far.
All right stop collaborate and listen...we stopped to climb in two different locations, each with 3 climbs. Pick pick...toe toe...pick pick...toe toe...and so it goes as one climbs up the wall of ice. Well...that's how it worked when the guide demonstrated. For me it was more like the following...pick pick...toe toe...pick pick...ow! I
smashed my knuckle...toe toe...slipped toe...hold on to picks tightly...try to jam toe back into the ice...repeat.
Perhaps I exaggerate a bit for effect...but there were a few smashed knuckles and the ice was certainly more crumbly for the crampons at times than I expected. All in all, I completed each of the 6 climbs throughout the day, eventually regained use of my forearms after a bit of a rest, and only had one knuckle with a visible wound. Great success! All climbs completed and the ropes pulled down...the guide looked at us and said "Yo man let's get out of here"...to which we all replied "Word to your mother".
It turns out that if you're in the hostel kitchen and talk loudly enough about needing a ride to a town 500km away the next morning, there just might be an English guy within earshot who knows a Canadian guy heading that way in his campervan in the morning who's willing to give you a lift. Very nice. Another bus ticket avoided.
Well...this is getting a tad longwinded, so I'll be brief for the rest. I spent 3 days hiking the Abel Tasman track on the north part
of the South Island. A rather grand departure from the previous hikes I've done. This was along the coast and went from beach to beach...featuring many seals, birds, starfish, etc. See the pics.
Another successful 3-part hitch from Abel Tasman to Picton...followed by a full day wine tour and then a ferry to the North Island later today. The wine tour was fun...but after tasting 6 different wines at 6 wineries all day...I figured I might have settled for the 1/2 day tour. After a while they all just starts tasting like a general wine flavor. Perhaps those with a more refined set of taste buds would feel differently...but apparently I'm not all that refined.
So this is my final stop on the South Island and it's been a fantastic 2nd stop of the journey. The original plan of 4 weeks grew to almost 6...but it was well worth the extra time. Up next is the North Island - including the capital (Wellington) and also Mordor. Mt. Doom, here I come...
Cheers,
Marc
For the non-Vanilla Ice fans out there...if anything in the account of the glaciers and ice climbing sounded a tad random and
out of place...just assume that it's part of my pathetic attempt to weave old crummy rap lyrics into my story. And if anything in the other accounts seems random and out of place...well I guess that's just my random mind at work.
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fatheed
non-member comment
balancing out the age groups
dude, those people drinking wine with you are old? trying to make up for all the 19 yr old company?