Wet Wet.....Wetter

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Route:

Okarito - Franz Joseph - Fox Glacier - Lake Paringa - Haast

Miles:

128

Toys:

Even though I packed a small rucksac of little toys for the girls, when it came to finally trying to squeeze everything in the trailer the toys didn't make it. Since then the girls have been very stoic about the situation and happily play with sticks, stones, gravel...odd bits of litter (you know) in fact I think they rather enjoy the feral lifestyle). So I have joined in the approach, as other campers liberally toss away endless plastic containers, I root around in the recycling: fashioning buckets from yoghurt tubs, watering cans from milk cartons and spades from long stemmed drink bottles - once you start you realise there is no end to the possibilities! However, one day when both girls were kitted out with a full array of such items, they fell into play with a little girl spending the day with her estranged father. I looked on in sympathy as he tried to pack 3 months of love into 3 hours, playing with her armful of brightly coloured beach toys he'd bought, and he looked on with equal pity at the two little girls with the smelly old plastic rubbish passed off by their mother as toys!

Roads:

Whenever people stop and talk to us, they always ask about the danger of New Zealand roads - due to the national feeling that Kiwi's are inconsiderate drivers. And yes, once every day someone will pass us closer than I would like, but statistically because there are so few vehicles on the road we are definately safer than in the UK. I also think that the roads here are just generally unsafe, the tarmac is poor, the camber is often very steep and the road is rarely straight for more than one kilometer. The speed limit is 60mph - because the highways are in truth 'A' roads, but just about everyone speeds. No motorways means it takes a long time to drive comparatively short distances, so people put their foot down. Any vehicle accident is head on and usually fatal, so even when we get a vehicle I'm not sure our safety will necessarily improve. The government has a pro-cycling campaign to educate drivers to give 1.5 meters clearance when passing bikes, but they have a long way to go as at the end of National Bike Awareness Week, 4 cyclists were killed (2 on the North Island and 2 on the South). So the roads are just like everywhere else, full of crap drivers, with no spatial awareness and who've never touched anything other than an accelerator pedal!
We've mainly stuck to sealed roads as cycling on any steep gravel is a steering nightmare. I've dropped the bike on a couple of the rough sections we've had to do getting to campsites and the like. After the horror of the first time, Lily is now quite unperturbed by the experience, as I wince at the loss of the skin inside my leg, she merely suggests that it might be better if she walked!!

Diary:

Even though we didn't set out to do so, we do appear to be cycle touring (old habits die hard). So I've updated the blog with our routes and mileages for anyone interested!

Well this week has been a wet one, and our all our wildlife viewing plans have been thwarted by the West Coast throwing some of it's more common weather conditions at us. We have lived a rather gifted life so far with seemingly endless sunshine and balmy conditions - perfect for swimming in any river or lake.

After a fine cooked breakfast in Whataroa and monopolising the computer for about 3 hours uploading pictures to our blog, we left Molly and Matthews and peddalled to Okatira. A beautiful beach with a lagoon where we could safely canoe with the girls and hopefully get glimpses of the very rare white heron that nest there. Whilst enjoying the fine evening weather on the beach our neighbour told us there was a heavy rain warning for the following day - and he was not wrong. It bucketed it down, and so we paddled around in the puddles glumly, sheltered in the communal camp area and shivered with all our layers on. For every person in a tent there are 10 in camper vans, so the six of us sleeping under canvas joined together in the shelter in the evening while the rain continued to hammer on the tin roof, and whilst enjoying the intrigues of a new game 'tippit' - just proves you can have a lot of fun with 10 cents - Ben and I made an escape plan. One of the couples would take the trailer to Franz Joseph so we could cycle there as quickly as possible rain or shine. The night turned into a howling gale and Ben had to go out and refix the guy ropes at one point, but amazingly the tent stood up to it and in the morning all our stuff was dry. As we left at 10:00 there was a break in the rain and we peddalled full pelt to Franz Joseph - how lucky we were the skies were blue and there was no wind. Without a campsite in Franz Joseph we had to stay in a backpackers, and we were very glad of it too. Once John and Sue dropped the trailer off the heavens opened and we skulked about town shopping and drinking coffee. When we met Molly and Matthew for curry in the evening, the skies once again were blue. We would attempt the three 200m climbs to Fox glacier the following day. But by bed time the skies were leaden grey and rain was hammering down again, a chink of blue sky at 9am made us keenly pack up, but the monsoon of rain falling and the sight of snow on the mountain tops by 10am made us keep our room for another night - there was no way we could keep the girls warm enough while we did the three big climbs. By lunchtime the skies had cleared and we had an excellent afternoon walk to the face of the glacier - Lily was determined to walk all the way as she wanted to touch the ice.
The following morning we cycled to Fox Glacier in sunshine, but after lunch and pitching our tent the skies were overcast and drizzly again - we opted for the playpark rather than a second climb to the glacier. Another morning of drizzle gave way just to damp skies as we peddalled south to Lake Paringa. We were in good spirits and going at a good pace - feeling we had escaped the rain - until we found the cafe stop we were looking forward to, boarded up. If that wasn't misery enough, a woman told us there was another storm warning for the following day. We pitched our tent at Lake Paringa, the solitary tent amonst gynormous campervans, shivered to wash in the lake and cooked our tea in the drizzle; apart from toilets there was absolutely no shelter at the campsite. Ben had thought to buy himself a bush hat in Franz Joseph with a lovely wide brim, so he sat comfortably as we cooked and ate tea in the drizzle - I meanwhile lived with constant rain trickle down the back of my jacket...could it possibly get worse? A couple invited us into their campervan for a cuppa, though I am sure after Lily and Thea had insisted on investigating every cupboard, every board game and trying out their cabin bed over the drivers seat that they were glad to see us go. After that we all went to bed, and listened to the rain - all night long. This time the tent did not survive so well and by morning the base was flooded and everything was wet. Without any phone signal we couldn't organise for a bus to pick us up - so we had to cycle to Haast. We packed up all our damp belongings and cooked our porridge under the toilet gable. I'd like to think that gagging on every mouthful of my breakfast, as people en-route for their morning movements continually opened the doors of the pit toilets, was the low point of this holiday!
The cycle to Haast was cold an miserable, the climb up to the lookout on Knights point was just a long slog into missly wet cloud, and the enthusiasm of a Chinese family wanting to take our photo at the top offered a cheering opportunity to practice my Mandarin. Though it mean't I was very cold by the time we did the descent. We had our lunch on a spray lashed beach being eaten alive by sandflies, where we had hoped to spend time looking for one of New Zealands rare penguins, but instead we shivered and vowed to get the bus if the weather forecast said the rain would continue. We arrived in Haast full of snot, with sore throats and greeted by a weather forecast that said: Sun - rain, Mon - showers, Tue - patches of rain, Wed - rain..... We got a cabin at the campsite switched the radiator, hung all our belongings from the bunks to dry and booked a bus to take us to Wanaka the following day.

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