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Published: April 3rd 2006
Lake Wanaka again...
This sunset just kept getting better.So it's been about two weeks since I stopped working, and what an action packed two weeks it's been. I know I said this in the last blog, but it's good to be on the road again. New people, new places, new experiences...what a great time I'm having. Actually today is four months since I left NY, it's funny but it seems like both a long time and a short time all at once, if that's even possible. Well back to business.
We left Motueka, heading south along the west coast of the south island. This entire coast is a World Heritage Site, and a well deserved one at that. The area is broken down into four national parks, Paparoa, Westlands, Mount Aspiring, and Fiordland The scenery has been spectacular, sometimes I almost feel like I'm dreaming.
After spending one night in Greymouth, just a small industrial looking town, the plan was to head into Arthurs Pass National Park. We woke up to cloudy skies, and there's no point heading into the mountains when you can't see anything, so we continued heading south instead and the next day we got to Paparoa National Park.
Paparoa, made famous by
Coastline of Poparoa National Park
The fog was lifting, it stopped raining and we had a big day of hikes ahead of us... the limestone formations formed over time by water, wind and weather. Most people head to Paparoa to see Pancake Rocks and the blowholes. These are limestone cliffs that have been carved out by the Tasman Sea to look like huge stacks of pancakes. This was a nice stop but by no means the highlight of my visit to the park, the highlight being Fox River Caves. This 3 hour return hike up a river valley, is nothing special except for the unbelievable cave you get to explore at the end of the hike. Paparoa has a huge limestone seam which over time reacted with acidic ground water to form caves, we even got to see stalactites and stalagmites. So the cave is about 200m long, the floor was covered with mud and water, and had it not been for our headlamps it would have been quite hazardous. There were small 5 foot drops, holes and low hanging rocks from the ceiling. What an adrenaline rush my first spelunking was. The craziest thing in the cave was the German couple we ran into in there without any lights. They had used the flash on their camera to make their way about
Spelunking anyone?
Caves are so cool... 50m into the cave. They would take a picture, memorize the layout of the cave, move forward a few meters, and then repeat. Until we arrived, then they followed our lead and we all made our way into some really tight passages. We also did a small hike down to a beach with overhangs carved out of the cliffs shaped like amphitheaters. After a great few hours in Paparoa, it was south again this time heading to Westland Natioanal Park, home of the glaciers. We passed through Franz Josef, on our way to Fox Glacier, our next stop.
What can I say about Fox Glacier, there is something special about a massive ice field that moves up to 3m a day. We had camped near the glacier at Lake Matheson. I had to set up my tent in torrential rain and wind, you would think that it would all be uphill after getting the tent up. But to my surprise I was woken up to a pecking noise at my tent. At first I payed little attention to it and went back to sleep, when a half hour later I heard the same noise. I unzipped the door only
Pancake Rocks
So I know they don't look exactly like a stack of pancakes, but hey I didn't name the place. to find a Kea, NZ parrot, trying to eat his way through my rainfly. At least after I shined my light in his face he left me alone, but that bird spent the next morning sitting in the trees singing it's head off and basically laughing at me, after he pecked five holes in my rainfly. Too bad I didn't have a slingshot, I wonder if Kea tastes like chicken?
Well I didn't let that dam bird ruin my day. It was a big day, we strapped on crampons, grabbed a walking stick and hiked onto the ice for a full day guided walk. Walking up a glacier was amazing, it took us about an hour to finally make our way onto the ice. For the first bit of the walk steps had been carved out of the ice by some guides. We explored a few ice caves, looked into some crevasses and then we got to the part of the glacier that required our guide to use his axe to carve our steps. We went down some steep walls, through some tight crevasses and cracks and emerged at the end of the day with a better understanding of
Blue Skies and a tall stack
It turned into a stunning day, just something about blue skies and the smell of the ocean. how glaciers shaped this part of NZ, how to tell if a valley was carved by a glacier and what forces act together to establish how glaciers exist. Overall it was another great day spent outside in the bright sun, fresh air surrounded by spectacular views in another one of mother natures temples.
You'd think the day couldn't get any better, but we were treated to a beautiful sunset at Gillespie's beach, a rocky beach, with logs strewn all over, and views of Mt Cook, NZ tallest mountain and Mt Tasman in the background. It was a great sunset, especially when I turned around after the sun went below the horizon only to find the two snow capped mountains glowing red in the background.
We had gotten a recommendation on a walk south of Fox Glacier, called the Copeland track, but since we were in no shape for a seven hour, 17km hike we spent another night at the stellar beach spot and got ready for our hike the next morning. We hit the track, which involved multiple river/creek crossings and which Lonely Planet called "a pleasant walk in the woods", pumped for the day ahead. Now I'm
Mother nature hard at work
So on a really stormy day the water shoots out of these blow holes...I know it looks rough but this was calm. not sure the characterization of the hike was entirely accurate, it was a mostly flat hike, but there was some mud and a lot of the hike consisted of scrambling over slippery boulders along a river bank. It was almost more mentally challenging than physically demanding having to watch where each step you took was. Just a little side story, because even though this is my blog and I could have protected myself from the laughs being the author and all, I thought you'd all get a kick out of this one.
Over five hours into the hike and with approximately 5km left my stomach started rumbling. Now being an adult I figured I could just hold it until we arrived at the hut, boy was I wrong. After skipping a waterfall lookout that Bryan and Dani stopped at, I picked up my pace and continued down the trail. About 15 minutes later, I dropped my pack, undid my belt and started heading back down the trail because obviously Bryan had the tp. It was a close call, but I managed to squat behind a tree just before I had what would best be described as a messy accident.
Natural Amphatheater
How cool would it be to see a concert with the band staged right under this cliff? I hope you found this little story amusing, I'm just happy it ended the way it did, even though you guys would have found it much more humorous if I had shit in my pants.
Well back to the Copeland track...the main reason people walk to the Welcome Flat hut is the natural hot springs that are a 5 minute walk from the hut. As you can see from the pictures the entire grassy tussock meadow the hut lies in is surrounded by spectacular 360 degree views of mountains, half of them massive snow capped peaks, the rest covered in dense green rainforest's. The tent site was so spectacular we decided to spend a second night. I spent the entire day with the rainfly off my tent, reading my book, lounging around in the hot pools staring at the mountains.
We were all wore out after finishing the Copeland so we spent the night in Haast, then were too tired to really do anything in Mt Aspiring, so we just drove through, and we'll head back that way soon. The next morning it was time for me to finally drive the manual, and after a pretty uneventful first
Mount Cook.
I just love this picture...no comment really necessary. drive of the goon we ended up in Wanaka, a gorgeous little town set on a lake. We continued to take it easy and just enjoyed a stunning sunset. The next day we headed off to Queenstown, was only there for one day, so I just walked around and did a bit of gear shopping. I was really starting to get excited for my one must do activity in NZ, kayaking Fiordland National Park.
We were reunited with Moskowitz for the first time in almost a month, but the reunion was short lived, 20 minutes later I grabbed the van and headed to Te Anu for the kayaking trip. Now I wanted to put up so many pictures from the last two weeks I decided to treat you to not one but two new blogs. So checkout the other, less wordy, blog to read about kayaking Doubtful Sound in Fiordland National Park...
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Betty
non-member comment
Apropos, a story for you....
...three very successful sons vie for their mother’s favor by giving her expensive gifts. The first son buys mother a fur coat. When he asks how she likes it, she says ‘I don’t need another coat, I love you dear, but you should save your money’. The second son buys mother a luxury car and she tells him ‘I’m getting too old to drive much, I love you dear, but you should save your money’. The third son searches the world for a special gift and buys a trained parrot that can recite all of Shakespeare and hum all of Mozart’s works. The third son asks his mother how she liked his gift and she says ‘I love you dear, you are my best and most thoughtful son, that was the best tasting chicken I ever ate’.