Te Anua to Franz Joseph

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Kia Ora, we’re back! Lot’s of driving the last two days, all the way from Te Anua, which we left Thursday morning, to Fanz Joseph on the West Coast. On the way we stopped in Wanaka for some hiking and a night stop.

The drive from Te Anua to Wanaka was quite nice; we had done the stretch from Queenstown to Te Anua before, so it wasn’t totally new. This might be the biggest farming area on the island, at least that we have seen. Sheep farm after sheep farm, millions of them, and a whole lot or deer farms also (they export the venison to Australia). Fortunately we haven’t seen any in the roads yet. A little Northeast of Queenstown we diverted through the a series of mountains, the Crown and Criffel Ranges. The first couple of kilometers was pretty much straight up, and within minutes we were presented with a breath-taking view of the land below.

By the time we made it into Wanaka, the morning rain had stopped, so we stopped in the park outlining the lake and made ourselves lunch. Just another beautiful lake, the 4th largest in N.Z., and the clouds just made it better. We decided we would go for an afternoon hile, so off to Iron Mountain we went. It was billed in the guidebook as an hour and a half round trip up gently sloping trails, but it was a bit more work that that. By the time we reached the summit it was quite warm & sunny, and we were a little winded. The views, as you can see, were quite worth it. However, we were quickly distracted by two local couples (or did we distract them), and started a 1 hour cultural exchange. Like all New Zealanders, they were delightful, inquisitive, and open about their way of life, and we all talked for 20 minutes or so on the summit, and then all the way back down to the parking lot. Thank goodness we made such good friends, as we realized when we got to the parking lot that we had locked our keys (and our cell phone) in the van; they of course offered their cell phone and hung out until they knew we would be taken care of. Ten minutes and $50 later, we were on the road again, headed for the Boundary Creek DOC campsite on the head of Lake Wanaka.

We picked another great DOC for the night, camping right next to the lake. All the other campers we very quite and although it was quite windy, we were able to cook and sleep quite well. We also had our introduction to the New Zealand sandfly, which is quite the pest. The females light on you and bite, and it actually hurts and then itches like all heck. After I got bit by the first couple, I put on long pants, and we covered ourselves in the natural bug balm we got in Millford Sound, and we were fine.

Once we hit the road this morning for the West Coast, it started raining, and it’s been off and on all day. Of course, that just brings the beauty out in the region, so we weren’t complaining. We made it over the divide just fine, then into the rain forests of the West Coast. The forest is quite stunning…so thick and lush, full of ferns up to at least 5 meters tall. The rain also fed a slew of waterfalls, as it seemed that anywhere you looked on the mountain sides you could see one. We rolled into Franz Joseph this afternoon, and after lunch booked a spot on a tour-hike up the glacier for the morning. It’ll for a 4 hour hike, an hour up the valley created by the glacier, and 2 hours on the glacier itself. We’re both pretty excited to have the chance to wander out on this natural wonder, and glacier that stretches practically to sea level, and a healthy one at that (still advancing, unlike most of the rest of the world’s glaciers). We then booked an hour for this evening at the local spa, which has huge public pools and a few small private ones (we’re doing both), and then went to the West Coast Nature Center and saw our first Kiwis and learned a bunch about the local wildlife and the glaciers themselves. More later…

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