More mountains than people - Day 22

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Having enjoyed my last power shower, spa bath, and sauna for what could be some time, it's off to Auckland's domestic airport terminal for the internal flight to Christchurch. Again, I am amazed by the smooth and hassle free operation of NZ internal flight check-in procedures. The self service machines scan your passport, give you your boarding card and baggage label, and within 10 minutes and no queues, you are ready to board.

I had been warned that the South Island is far wetter than the North, so was not surprised when Auckland's bright 26 degree sunshine was replacved by Christchurch's 16 degrees of complete cloud cover with drizzle. Not to worry - the rain is good for the waterfalls.

Ian met me at the airport and took me back to the Affordable Motor Homes depot to pick up the camper van and run through the features and operations. I was given a Ford Transit van with a 2.4l turbo diesel engine featuring hot shower, loo, fridge, gas rings, sink, storage and good sized bed. All in all, this is going to be far more comfortable than I had imagined. Ian is a great guy. He started the company about 25 years ago more as a hobby, and has built it up with his daughter, grand-daughter and a few others into a small but reliable and trustworthy providor of motyor homes. My vehicle is 8 years old, but runs smoothly and seems to be well maintained. I estinmate that Ian has about 30 vehicles, and is happy to keep it like that as he values the personal touch and clearly likes a small close team running things too.

So, with the goal of driving to the Franz Joseph Glacier via Authurs Pass (376km in 5 hours), I left Ian and started to get used to the view and feel of this large hire car.

For an hour, the road is mainly straight and flat as it passes through the agricultural Canterbury Plains. Then the show really begins, and the climb up towards Arthurs Pass begins with moutains either side and a lot less traffic. The first challenge here is to keep driving - the temptation to stop and photograph the scenery is tough to resist (I failed a couple of times and had to pull over for a quickie). Even in the more hilly sections, roads are ofetn quite straight, but because there are so many dips in the road, yellow centre lines are used to warn against overtaking, even when the road ahead looks deserted.

One of the South Ialand's two railway lines crosses the country via Arthurs Pass, and at one stage, I was following a long slow freight train as it snaked its way up the other side of my valley. Even though it was crawling along, I still lost it, and only caught up with it as it stopped at the Pass. This train has two locomotives, which I guessed were needed to haul the heavy load up from Christchurch. However, it dawned on me as I started my descent to tthe West Coast that you need very good brakes on the way down, so this may have been just as important for the train to be double headed. Once down, I had to keep my windows open for a while to get rid of the smell of my overused brake pads. It's a steep road which drops nearly a kilometer in altitude in just 94 km distance between the Pass and the coast.

I started meeting challenge number two once on the main west coast road. Every 10 or 20 km, you come across a bridge that crosses a river. The area has loads of rivers coming down from the mountains, so there are many bridges, and all these bridges are single track with an indication at either end as to who has formal right of way. The touble in practice is that you can be driving quite happily at 100km/h and as you approach the bridge, you slow to 80 or even 70 km/h, but if it looks clearish, you enter the bridge, only to find that it's very long, and maybe there's someone else in the distance coming the other way. Luckily, some have passing places half way along, but these are not big enough for a lorry with trailer, so drivers tend to pray a lot.

The west coast road is pretty empty. There are a few small villages on the way, and one or two have signs offering jade shops or seabird colonies, but you need to turn off and take a gravel track to get to some of these, and as I want to get to my camp site by 9pm, I am not going to go off down any bumpy winding tracks for something that might or might not be there.

About 70km before reaching my destination, I stopped for coffee at a village called Harihari. By chance, this modest settlement had an unusal farm with a herd of large deer. It turns out that these are Rocky Mountain Elk (aka Wapiti), which is possibly one of the last farm animals you'd expect to see down here. The statistics currently suggest about 37 million ewe (and about half a million rams), 8 million dairy cattle, and 4,5 million people in NZ, of which about a quarter of the people live on the South Island. Nowhere do the stats mention Wapiti, so this farm of maybe 60 animals might be it. Anyway, after exchanging a few words and a handful of lush grass, it was onwards and upwards.

Franz Joesph town is a surprisingly well developed tourist settlement. It reminded me of some of the french towns like Chamonix, albeit smaller and more modern, but clearly the hostels, campsites, cafes, bars, and mountain related businesses are doing well, and a large number of people come here to stay and enjoy the natural resources on offer. There is some critisism of the way that commercial interests have been allowed to establish themselves here, but from what I saw, they added access and opportunity for many in a way that probably controlled and managed the human influence better than having no development, but loads of free campers and no rubbish bins.

The camp site I stayed at was designed for youngsters (just like me) and had internet, a lively alpine bar, and even a spa pool! The one thing it didn't have was good weather, so as far as glacier walks were concered, I was out of luck. Still, as this was my first night, it took a while to set up the power and water connections for my van, and once I'd created a hot meal, and got the bed constructed, I was ready for sleep. My plot was quite a long way from the active part of the camp, so within minutes, I was out for the count, and am happy to report that I slept right through until 6 the next morning, only being woken by the symphony of rain drops on my roof.

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Photos

Heading towards Arthurs Pass
Mountains and low cloud in the distance add drama to the drive, and even though the road ahead looks straight, the yellow lines warn against overtaking (in there werte any other traffic)

Man with a van
This is my home for the next 9 days. Note the easy to remember number plate

Freight train at Arthurs Pass
Two locos are needed as much to haul the load up the hill as to apply the brakes on the way down

Challenge 2 - narrow bridges
The main west coast road contains dozens of narrow single track bridges. You don't want to meet an articulated lorry coming the other way.

West coast farming stock
Not sheep, not cattle, but very large deer on a farm in Harihari