Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2007
Edit Blog Post
Our first stop was the Nelson Lakes National Park where we went for a walk alongside Lake Rotoiti, surrounded by snow capped mountains. After a BBQ sausage by the lake, we drove to Murchison for lunch. We continued through the very scenic Buller Gorge and arrived in Westport at 4pm where we watched an exciting last 15 minutes of the local rugby game. Then we walked around the small town and bought dinner and beers for the evening at the hostel. We sat in the cosy TV room and watched Austin Powers before having dinner and a couple of beers. We went to the local bar at 8.30pm where there was a live band and all the rugby players from both teams. A few of us pushed on to a reggae bar where I watched a couple of football games before getting home at 3am. On Sunday, we left Westport at 9am and began our journey down the spectacular State Highway 6 that stretches 435 kilometres along the rugged West Coast. Our first stop was Cape Foulwind where we walked to one of NZ’s largest seal colonies. We continued on to Punakaiki Pancake Rocks where we sat outside and had lunch
before checking out the series of limestone stacks, surge pools and blowholes while watching the waves batter the coastline. Our next stop was Greymouth where we went shopping for an hour before continuing on to Lake Mahinapua Hotel where Les the owner greeted us. We took the five minute walk to the very scenic and peaceful Lake Mahinapua before walking to the beach. At 7pm we sat down to a huge dinner of roast potato, steak, venison stew, vegetables and pasta. After this feast and a couple of beers, we had an early night. On Monday, we woke up at 8am and went on a one hour walking trail that took us to the lake where it was so tranquil with an amazing backdrop of Mount Cook and the Southern Alps. At 10am, we drove to Pukekura where we visited the Bushman’s Centre and walked around their amusing museum and watched a DVD on helicopter deer recovery. After another couple of hours driving, we reached Franz Josef at 1pm where I had a quick lunch before being driven to Fox Glacier for my skydive. Squeezed in our small plane was the pilot, my tandem instructor and I along with the
other jumper and his instructor. It took 20 minutes to reach the required 12,000 feet altitude and this gave us great views of the Glacier and also Mount Cook and Southern Alps. As soon as the other jumper had exited the plane, I shifted across and hung my legs out of the door. After a thumbs up for the camera, I looked down to the ground to add to the excitement and then we exited the plane. The 45 seconds of free fall were amazing and we did a couple of spins and turns while also taking time to look at the mountains. Once the chute opened at 4,000 feet, I had 4 minutes in the air to appreciate the view, take some pictures (they let me take my own camera) and have fun doing some turns in the air. After a nice landing, we drove back to base before being dropped off at our lodge in Franz Josef. That night I had dinner in our bar before returning to our room to watch Wolf Creek on TV. On Tuesday, we woke up at 9am in preparation for our heli-hike of the Franz Josef Glacier but this was cancelled due
to the clouds. After a 2 hour internet session, the afternoon heli-hike was also cancelled so we went for a walk along a river/stream where the icy water was flowing from the mountains and glacier. At one point, we had to take our shoes and socks off, roll up our trousers and walk through the icy water to get across the fast flowing river. We then decided to try and build a bridge across by placing stones, rocks and boulders together in the river. After a couple of hours, we got two thirds of the way across and then we were too tired so we walked back to the lodge (although still very proud of our achievement). After making dinner in the kitchen, we spent the evening watching Walk The Line on TV in our room. On Wednesday, we woke up at 7am for our full day hike of the FJ Glacier. After checking in at the shop, we put on all of our hiking gear and took a short bus ride to the National Park. A 45 minute walk took us to the base of the glacier and it was here we put the spikes on our hiking shoes
and began walking up the cut steps. After a couple of hours, we stopped for a snack and by this stage the path we were taking was a lot more interesting. The Glacier was moving by up to one metre a day at this time so the path can change from day to day and our guide led us through and over crevasses. When we reached the stage where we could not hike up any further due to our lack of climbing skills, we had lunch and then began our descent. We eventually reached the base at 4pm and walked back to the bus which took us back to the shop. That evening we had dinner and a beer by the log fire in our bar before returning to our room to watch Capote on TV. On Thursday, we caught our 8am bus to Wanaka.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0401s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb