Further South to Fox Glacier with a side trip to Hokitika Gorge

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It is ANZAC Day and back home we would have already been to and arrived home from the Dawn Service, had we been at home!

Instead we have woken at 7am in the Hokitika Seafront Hotel with our first decision to be made for the day to be what time should we go down for breakfast.

The 48 seater coach that had disgorged the over 60’s on their tour was still in the car park which meant that probably the passengers were in the restaurant having their breakfast. It was a simple decision to therefore not be too quick to get down to the restaurant to let the place empty out.

By the time we had showered and readied ourselves and set off from our first floor room we could see the bus had departed and therefore the restaurant should be fairly empty and so it was.

It made a nice change not having to prepare our own breakfast and we partook fully of the breakfast as part of our overnight package.

Outside the weather looked threatening as the forecast had predicted but we thought a walk along the seafront path was still in order before we headed away from Hokitika and inlands towards the gorge bearing the name of the town. This side trip is on the recommendation of my sister and even though the weather had signs of closing in with rain we should still be able to make the trip before the rain arrived.

We didn’t get too far before the rain spread in from the sea and as it didn’t look like it was going to stop quickly we abandoned the sea wall walk and headed back to the car which was close at hand just in case the weather turned against us.

With the usual petrol fill to be done before the days travel starts we were faced with NPD, Challenge or BP as the supplier to choose from.NPD was an automated service station and they provide a bit of a challenge to get a fuel discount which looked to be on offer when you don’t have someone to manually process your card payment. BP wasn’t showing a discount as good as Challenge was so we opted for the latter and were very pleased to receive a whopping 12c a litre off just for showing our Gold Card.

Before we left the town we noticed people seemingly arriving for the ANZAC Day service to be held in the local cinema starting at 11am.We would have liked to have attended but the finishing time would have meant it would have been lunchtime before we got away from the town and probably not giving us enough time to visit the gorge and still make Fox Glacier for our next stay while it was still daylight.

The road east towards the Southern Alps and the Hokitika Gorge was definitely dairy country and it is hard to imagine the grass drying out from its verdant green colour on the West Coast where there is an abundance of rainfall. Everything looked very lush.

The road across the flat plain took us left and right several times passing by the Kowhitirangi memorial to the Stan Graham incident from Oct 1940 when the local farmer down on his luck shot and killed 7 policemen and others during a 12 day manhunt by over 100 police and several hundred soldiers and members of the home guard tracked him down before Graham too was shot and died 3 days later in Westland Hospital, Hokitika.

Light showers were passing by as we arrived at the car park to the gorge walk but having travelled the distance to get here we weren’t going to be put off by a little bit of rain.

The walk into the swing bridge, which was as far as intended to go, was easy and through a stand of forest. At one stage the path takes you on an elevated walkway that makes it almost like you are walking in the treetops.

The first view of the swing bridge over the ice blue coloured river (snow fed water) had a notice that drones were not to be flown in the area. It seems this is a sign of the times as drones have become almost a toy, when they are not used for a commercial purpose, and have become rather a nuisance.

Gretchen ventured over the swing bridge but I decided that my memories of a longer swing bridge and a squall at Karamea 6 months ago were still recent enough to admire the scenery from the start of the bridge.

The rain had set in a bit more as we made it back to the car park and retraced our drive back towards the coast before we turned south at Kaniere and paralleled the main road to just south of Lake Mahinapua.

The small town of Ross was next and as we drove through we recalled nearly 50 years ago when we had our first trip to the West Coast by railcar from Christchurch as part of a Grand Tour by public transport when we had been sold a train ticket from Christchurch to Ross even though the railcar had not gone past Greymouth for a couple of years prior! Luckily there was a bus waiting at Greymouth to take us the 70km odd south to Ross.

Now the rain was falling steadier and we abandoned a stop at Harihari for a coffee and muffin and carried on to the turnoff to Okarito by which time the rain had stopped.

We had decided to head to the coast in the hope that we might catch a glimpse of the kotuku or white heron that use the lagoon as their only nesting place in New Zealand. The rarest specie of NZ Kiwi, the Rowi, is also found in the forest here although we don’t expect to see any of those in our short stop.

By chance as we ventured out onto the jetty on the edge of the river a white heron was wading in the water just off the island in the lagoon giving us a photo opportunity even though the bird was over 100 metres away.

Okarito was a thriving gold town in the 1860’s when the population was over 1500 people. Today there are a number of what looked like holiday homes with a few permanent residents evident too.

Back to the main road and Franz Josef was the next settlement in our path. We have stayed here on other occasions but have opted for Fax Glacier allowing us to visit Lake Mathieson at sunrise subject to the weather performing for us.

Franz Josef took a beating in 2019 when a ‘100 year flood’ took out the bridge over the Waiho River and also blocked Highway 6 both north and south of the town stranding many tourists in the town until those who had flights to catch back to their home countries had to be airlifted out leaving their rental cars behind.

The replacement bridge across the river looked and felt solid as we crossed it and we were impressed by the high flood wall of local boulders constructed especially on the southern bank of the river to protect the land area for the future.

Once through the winding road of Mount Hercules we dropped down into the township of Fox Glacier and found our motel for our 3 night stay. With microwave dinners purchased in Hokitika we were set to settle in and prepare for a day of relaxation tomorrow as the weather forecast probably wasn’t going to allow much in the way of outdoor activities.

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