NZ South Island West Coast/Fjordland - tight lines!

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Greymouth is a feisty little town, the business base of the West Coast of the South Island. When the Tranz Alpine train arrives once a day, it springs to life with queues for rental cars, hungry tourists clambering for a cold beer at the station hotel, and then slowly sinks back into its usual torpor. This is big coal mining country and on the train over the mountains we pass a long train, its cars loaded with coal. At the rental car counter we are "upgraded" to a behemoth white SUV - a Toyota Highlander - I'm sure they figured that as Californians we had to drive this type of gas guzzler. Well, think about negotiating these little two lane roads, with the one lane bridges, with GW (we've named it Great White) and wish us well. Rt. 6 is the West Coast equivalent of Rt. 1 on the East Coast - the only game in town. The West Coast is the wild coast - mountains, glaciers, fjords, Adventure!!!!! Steve sets out driving south, winding through a combination of rain forest and mountain landscape, on our way to Franz Joseph Glacier, a two hour drive. For those of you who know about his bad back, you may have wondered how he's been doing - fine until a couple of days ago but now it's acting up. At one of our stretch breaks, he balances his leg on a fence, bends over and CRACK - suddenly his back feels great! So who need doctors when you have roundabouts for low blood pressure and fences for bad backs....



We're staying at a lovely B&B, Ribbonwood Retreat, run by Jo and Julie, a lovely couple with interesting lives. Jo is a wildlife ranger (and the spitting image of John Slattery/Roger Sterling from Mad Men) and Julie is an international school teacher who has taught all over the world. They operate their B&B during the summer tourist season and then go wherever Julie teaches for the rest of the year - pretty nice life. We have a lovely cottage in a meadow and as I peer out the window, I have to believe there are big mountains behind those cloud banks. As we drove down, there was one blinding glimpse of something big and white but the heavens are socked in with low scudding clouds and we're missing the majestic views. Dinner at a pub in town with the big screens blaring the New Zealand-England cricket match. We engage our friendly waiter to see if he can explain the game to us but he says he can't stand it, wryly commenting "It's like watching paint dry." We end up with a long conversation about sports here and in the US and we all conclude that you have to be born in a country to understand its sports - he just shakes his head at football.



The next morning we're up bright and early to get out on our heli-hiking expedition - we've been hearing the choppers go since early morning so we're hopeful that our trip will be going. B&B breakfasts are always a delight and Julie outdoes herself with stewed rhubarb from her garden - Steve and I bicker with the other couple from Chicago over who gets the last drop but Julie assures us there's plenty more to be had.



Off to the village to check in for our heli-hiking adventure - a helicopter up the Franz Joseph Glacier, then a couple of hours exploring ice caves, glaciers, etc, with a guide and then another helicopter trip back down the mountain. Interestingly enough, this is the first time we've had to sign any type of release acknowledging that we are taking our lives in hands by doing this foolhardy expedition - guess we finally found something that Kiwis actually consider slightly dangerous. How nice to be in a non-litigious country where the assumption is that you have common sense. There's a nice little group of about 15 of us, including our B&B friends, many of us grey beards but also a young woman wearing a hiking skirt with ruffles in the back - really, ruffles on a glacier? But then maybe if I had legs like that I'd show them off too...but probably not on a glacier...but then I don't really understand these hiking skirts. We suit up with parkas, weather proof pants, wool socks, hiking boots, crampons in our fanny packs (I finally get to wear the wool gloves I lugged with me)...only to have the helicopter pilot decide the weather is too bad to fly. DAMN.... Well, this is the first time we've had one of our adventures cancelled because of bad weather (I don't count Cyclone Oswald in the Whitsundays since that was an adventure in and of itself) so we can't really feel too badly about this. The mountain is well and truly socked in this morning so we know the pilot made the right call.



We hop in GW and head south for the drive to Queenstown, with a list of hikes and sights thoughtfully provided by Jo and Julie. The two lane road meanders through heavily forested areas, again with no sight of the majestic peaks lurking to our left and we begin to wonder what all the to-do is about the scenery in NZ. The narrow roads remind us of the ones in northern Maine, used for logging. We encounter several flotilla of cyclists, strung out over many kilometers, and it's somewhat hair-raising to pass them...but not as hair-raising as it must be for them. We're finding it somewhat difficult to read the roadsigns - many of the Maori names are a difficult combination of Pacific Islander syllables and letter combinations and we realize how accustomed our eyes and brain are to Western European letter and word combinations. It takes a while to deconstruct some of the names and by that time we've whirled by the cutoff. There's lot of rental camper vans on the road as that's the Kiwi way to travel - our road atlas even has a map symbol showing everywhere you can clean out your waste! My favorite rental company is Wicked - they have old VW type campers, liberally painted with graffiti with a large WICKED scrawled across the front - lots of 20 something backpackers in these - I'm particularly fascinated by the ones that have 2 girls and 3 guys...must be interesting.



We stop at Haast, at the edge of a massive wilderness area - at the National Park information center we watch a magnificent movie of the area and sigh at the scenes of what we're missing as the clouds are still with us. Travel tip - if you are ever in Haast and stop for lunch, do not eat at the Fantail Cafe - go hungry for miles instead. It looks normal enough and I order a whitebait pattie - I've been seeing signs for them and it's a local fish and I like to try local delicacies. Well, it's not clear that any whitebait gave their lives in the making of this pattie - as far as I can tell its two pieces of Wonder bread with some eggy substance in between and perhaps one or two slivers of some vaguely fishy material. Between that and Steve's dishwater soup, we went hungry for lots of miles. We're hoping our luck will change or this is going to be quite a downer of a day. Then....SUNSHINE!!!!! Suddenly around a turn in the road, the clouds clear and the white peaks burst forth at us. Now we understand all the excitement! Throughout the Haast area we are open-mouthed at the views and even feel brave enough to stop at some pullouts on the right side of the road. The Blue Pools, a short hike from the road, is the confluence of two major rivers, and the limpid blue waters flow below the chain suspension bridge. GW announces that she is thirsty and we stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and fill up for ....$116! I know it's in liters and Kiwi dollars but I still think this is a record!



We decide to take the scenic route over the Crown Range into Queenstown and it is magnificent. Steve's been doing most of the driving - he figures if he's going to be nervous he might as well be in control. The road starts out through beautiful alpine meadows through ski country but quickly careens into the automotive equivalent of a bobsled run, with 15 km speed limit corkscrew turns with pitiful little wooden guardrails protecting you from the steep drops. To say we're glad to finally get into Queenstown would be an understatement. It's probably a good thing that our hiking was cancelled this morning since it has taken us 7 hours to do the drive.



Queenstown bills itself as the adventure capital of NZ and it is ground zero for adrenaline junkies, with every daredevil sport known. It is a lovely small town on the shores of Lake Wakatipu that has burst into the four season tourism scene. It considers itself the Aspen of NZ but it doesn't quite deserve that level of comparison. It's a combination of 20 something backpackers living out of their vans, tourist condos, and some lovely upscale B&B's - guess where we're staying... Our room at Brown's Boutique Hotel has a view of the lake and we're glad to relax...although GW is so big she can't fit into the little parking lot at the hotel and has to make do on the street. Steve deserves Italian food tonight and dinner at Bella Cucina is delicious. As at most other restaurants in NZ, there is a charge if you want bread and butter but the good news is that it always delicious. On top of that there's another charge - usually about 2% - anytime you use your credit card. We've found both Australia and New Zealand expensive but this tops it off. After dinner we wander through the town by the lakefront and indulge in some tasty ice cream from a local creamery called Patagonia.



Well, when you're in the adventure capital we better get going on some adventures. Believe it or not, we've gotten somewhat sensible in our choices, and decide to take the gondola up the mountain to do some exploring. It's a nice ride up and the views at the top go on for miles over the ranges. There's a nice walk up to the start of the Ben Lomond track which we enjoy but, hey, we need some adventure! There's a luge track that you can ride down in a little self steered...and braked...cart and while I can't talk Steve into it, I go for it. It's possible I set a new speed record on the track...for the slowest descent. Never mind - I had a ball - it brings out the big kid in you! Steve takes a couple of hours off since he politely declines to join me in exploring the town (read shopping). In the afternoon we take an old coal burning streamer, the TSS Earnslaw, across the lake to the Walter Peak High Country Farm, since I'm determine to see a sheeporama. So, you ask what is a sheeporama???? Truth to tell, it's a word I made up. All our friends who have gone to NZ told us to be sure to visit a sheep farm as the tours were fascinating. To this day I remember my sister's photo of a stage with sheep all on different height platforms, stupidly gazing at the tourists. So I decided sheeporama was a perfect word to describe all this. You'd thought I would have done extensive research on this, give my proclivity for travel planning, but this one slipped between the cracks and this is the last sheeporama on our trip. I'm concerned it won't be a true sheeporama since it's just for tourists but dilatory sheep beggars can't be sheep choosers. The trip on the boat is in hot sunshine and we bask in the warmth. Once disembarked, Angus takes us on a tour of the farm, with a 6 point buck, highland cattle, and sheepdog puppies (did I mention this is for tourists?). After a proper afternoon tea on a terrace overlooking the lake, it's on to the main event. King, the sheepdog, works a small group of dumb, and not entirely compliant, sheep down the hill, through the paddock gate, around the pasture and back again, with Angus guiding him with hand signals and whistles. He's fierce in his glowering at the sheep, quick to try to capture the crazy, lazy ones (including the one who runs directly into the fence post), and seems take an almost antic joy in his work. Angus then rustles one of the sheep onto the shearing platform, and proceeds to give us chapter and verse on NZ sheep farming, all the time wielding an electric sheep sheering contraption on a recalcitrant ewe, who sheds her deep dense coat onto the platform. It's an incredible demonstration of brawn and the sheeporama definitely meets my expectations.



Back in town I wander by an upscale store BONZ, which features NZ products, and there's a $5,000 dollar sheepskin coat for sale - shades of Steve's old business. A last, tasty dinner of native green lipp mussels at Finz at a waterfront table and we say our goodbyes to Queenstown.



The drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound through Te Anau keeps us drunk on the scenery. We stop at our B&B in Te Anau, the Rose n' Reel, owned by Lyn and Lex Lawrence, to drop our luggage as we are going for an overnight sail on Milford Sound. Lyn, the gardener half of the couple who own the B&B (as in Rose) greets us with a cuppa and a biscuit, it being time for elevenses, and send us on our way with a map of don't miss stops on the way to Milford Sound. The road winds through the beautiful Eglinton Valley with the snow capped peaks reaching skyward in the distance. We begin the climb out of the valley and the road begins to twist and turn and clouds start to bank up against the mountains. At one stop the kea parrots attack a camper van, their favorite food being the rubber from wind shield wiper blades and car windows and whoa to the unwary tourist who gets between bird and rubber. You see signs for all the famous walking tracks - Milford, Routeburn - pointing towards the peaks and admire the hearty climbers. At our B&B in Queenstown we had a lively breakfast with an English couple, recently retired and our age, who had just come off a five day trek on the Milford Track - at least she did acknowledge that her shoulders were a bit sore from carrying the pack.



The Homer Tunnel cuts through the solid rock of the mountain for 1.2 meters, a 20 year engineering feat, finished in 1954. It was started in the early 1930's but digging was discontinued during WW II for the fear that the Japanese might come into Milford Sound and use the tunnel to invade NZ. It's an eerie tunnel, with unlined sides of black hewn rock, dripping ceilings, and fluorescent light fixtures glowing bone white suspended fro the low ceiling. Right now it's only one way due to some construction so you wait in a queue at the entrance for the green light and then proceed slowly into the mysterious Stygian darkness. Terrifying enough with one way traffic - can't imagine it with two way traffic.



After the tunnel we stop for a short hike to The Chasm, where the Cleddau River tumbles hundreds of feet down a step chasm, with waterfalls spinning down the cliffs. The road coming out of the tunnel makes the Crown Range road look like child's play, with hairpin turns over thousand foot drops. And did I mention that full size buses crammed with tourists come barreling at you from the other direction?



Finally down to sea level and the fjord cliffs, rising over a mile from the sound, peak through striated clouds and tentative sun. We are on an overnight 60 passenger boat, the Milford Mariner from RealJourneys, and it looks like it should be a spectacular evening for us. After the mandatory safety briefing conducted the captain acting as stand up comedian, we sail down the fjord, simply overwhelmed the majesty and beauty of our surroundings. Mitre Peak pokes up to our left through a mid level cloud formation and Sterling Falls streams down the cliff face to our right. Mitre Peak is over a mile high and a mile deep in the fjord. Sterling Falls are twice the height of Niagara Falls, the height of a 50 story building. You lose all sense of proportion in the fjord because of the massiveness of scale and we walk around the boat slack-jawed. We get drenched with the cold spray from the falls but won't go back inside for fear of missing a moment of this majesty. We anchor for the night in Harrison Cove, a protected inlet, and Steve gets to realize his dream of kayaking on Milford Sound. He raves about the experience of seeing the rock walls rise out of his sight from the water and the quiet beauty of taking in this World Heritage site from the peace of a kayak. I take the lazy way and enjoy the Sound on a tender from our boat. There is an excellent naturalist on board and we learn about the endangered crested penguins, the fur seals which have made a magnificent comeback from near extinction, and the vicious slote, an introduced pest that has wreaked havoc with native wildlife.



Back on board the bar opens up and the party starts. We crack open...or in this case screw open...a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and proceed to meet our fellow travelers. A retired couple from New Jersey, both schoolteachers, who moved to Asheville and rave about life there, a couple from Wisconsin, who knew Steve's cousin Walter Gold there, who split their time among their 15th century farmhouse in Burgundy, their winter home in Sarasota, FL and Deer Valley in Utah - tough life but someone has to do it - he has retained his Midwestern kindly openness but she has moved on to a somewhat more ethereal manner, the English marine biologist and his wife from Plymouth who have a second home in Andalusia in southern Spain and....you can go on and on. It's fun and easy, and the food is plentiful and good. I even get to have my first taste of the national dessert - Pavlova, which is a concoction combining meringue, whipped cream, fruit and who knows what else. After dinner the naturalist, who has taken over from the captain as a stand up comic, scares the pants off of us with some videos of storms in the fjord, and incredible survival stories. We toddle off to bed, slightly tipsy (the Solway Lass could take some pointers from this boat) and rock gently through the night.



Next morning bright and early breakfast at 7 a.m. and then off to watch the sunrise over the Tasman Sea at the mouth of the fjord - nothing but open sea west to Australia and south to Anarctica. Our adventure ends with a slow, peaceful sail back up the fjord as the sun breaks through the clouds, crowning the peaks with light.



On the drive back to Te Anau we stop to explore side roads and trails, hike up to Humboldt Falls at the start of the Routeburn Track, get a chuckle out of Gunns Camp, a vintage 1930's high mountain camp now doing duty as a backpacker haven and its early settlers museum, and meander along the nature trail by Lake Gunn. Back at the Rose n' Reel we meet Lex, the fishing guide half of the operation (i.e.the Reel), and plan Steve's day of fishing with Lex tomorrow. Our little cabin is in the midst of the deer pasture, and we are greeted by the buck and his family, including the young ones just born at Christmas. The cabin is truly vintage 1950's, with a snug bedroom, hot plate on the counter, Reader's Digest condensed books and a hand-tatted doily with dangling blue beads over the sugar bowl - I love it! Lyn tells us not to worry about strange noises in the night as Micky, the horse, likes to rub up against the cabin wall at night.



We had been told about a wonderful film about the Fjordland area made by some local filmmakers which was showing at the local cinema and so we go to the 5 p.m. show and are pleasantly surprised by the brand new theater with plush comfortable seating and a coffee bar next door so you can caffeine up with your movie. The film, Ata Whenua Shadowland, is a cinematic triumph, a visual and musical celebration of this extraordinary place, shot from helicopters and on the ground. We are so blown away that we buy the DVD of the film so if you come visit be prepared to be entertained. It truly does justice to this other-worldly landscape. Dinner at the Fat Duck with a surprisingly good steak and a wicked coffee with Baileys and Amaretto and we fall into bed...to the sound of Micky scratching on the cabin.



Fishing day is at hand! After a delicious breakfast with Lyn's freshly baked whole grain bread with local Manuka honey, they're ready to go. Lex has an antique glass-fronted box with hand tied flies for sale and I can see Steve eyeing them carefully. Lex is a barrel-chested Kiwi, few words but funny ones, and he has a garage full of boys toys for fishing and hunting. The boys set off at 9 a.m., angling off the paved road after about 15 minutes, through a friend's land onto a gravel path, with Steve leaping out of the truck to open and close too many gates to count. Then off the gravel path cross country down to the Yupakarora River where the fun begins. When Steve staggers back around 4:30 I know it has been a great day by the tired smile on his face. They fish all day, and Steve says there was a real thill to seeing the fish in the clear water under the glare of the overhead sun, casting before it knew you were there and then the fight to land it . Lex can spot fish that Steve never sees and doesn't waste a cast until he spots a good one. They caught and released two good sized brown trout and another three to four slipped off the hook or out of the net. Steve says he learned a lot from Lex and he drags into the cabin and collapses on the bed.



And what did I do today since fishing is not my sport...not much of anything, thank you very much. It's brilliantly sunny with a light cool breeze in the air and so I got to relax, do the laundry and hang it to air dry on Lyn's old fashioned clothes line, with the lavender scented air from her garden permeating the clothes, blog, explore town (aka shop), drive to Manapouri to see the sights in the one street town, and just have a day with nothing scheduled - what a pleasure.



Hard to believe but it's our last adventure day and what a one it is! After breakfast and a farewell to Lyn and Lex, who are away for the weekend leaving the livestock in charge of us, we head out to Te Anau Downs to pick up the boat across the lake to the start of the iconic Milford Track walk, often called the most beautiful hike in the world. The full trek is a 4 day/3 night hike, ending up at Milford Sound, but we're only doing the hike to the first hut and back today. It's an hour's boat ride across the lake - Lake Te Anau is the second largest lake in NZ - and while everyone swears that the clouds will clear, it's starting out with a low cloud cover and the temperature around 50 so we're both layered up with lunch in the day pack and my trusty hiking stick strapped on. The weather here in the Southland reminds us of Maine, where the saying is "If you wait 15 minutes, the weather will change." Cool mornings, warm afternoons, and late evenings - at 9 p.m. it's still light out and the moon is just coming up.



It's still grey when we set out but by midday the sun breaks through and it's glorious. The very easy trail meanders alongside the Clinton River and Steve keeps an eye out for trout and I can see him casting for the big one in his imagination. The mountains loom large over the trail and you can still see snow on some mountain tops. The sun sheds a dappled pattern on the forest floor as we hike and you can hear the chatter of birds in the trees and the riffle of the water There are very few hikers on the trail so most times we are alone with the beauty. We take a side trail to a wetland bog and break out into the full sunshine of a meadow surrounded by mile high peaks, crystal clear against the deep blue sky. It's an easy 5.5 km to the Clinton Hut and we laze around a wood picnic table with our lunch spread out before us, and take catnaps in the sunshine. The hut consists of two bunk rooms, sleeping about 40, and another building for cooking and eating, very nicely maintained by the Department of Conservation - nearly 60% of all land in NZ is owned and maintained by the Department of Conservation.



On the way back we stop to chat with a fly fisherman who's having quite a day, with four rainbow trout caught and released so far, and three more that got away - I can see Steve chomping at the bit! Once back at the boat we curl up in the sunshine and laze/snooze all the way back. The fisherman shares a photo with Steve of the 10 pound rainbow he caught and released - magnificent! What a perfect final adventure for this trip...and quite a nice way to celebrate my upcoming 64th birthday tomorrow - who would have guessed I'd be celebrating it on the Milford Track! A final farewell dinner to NZ at the Redcliff Cafe with an interesting trio of local Pinot Noirs and delicious lamb. You have to love a town where, at the best restaurant, everyone shows up in their hiking gear.



We're flying back to Sydney tomorrow for one more peak at that gorgeous city and then the last 14 hour leg of our journey to San Francisco on Monday. One more blog to follow....

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Photos

Franz Joseph Glacier
Why we didn't go heli-hiking

Haast Valley
Here's what all the excitement is about!

Blue Pools
Cerulean clear blue water, reflecting the sky above

Driving through the Haast Valley
Sometimes the views almost didn't look real

Kid at play
Luging in Queenstown

Sheep-o-rama
Finally getting to see the sheep

Walter Peak High Country Farm
On Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown

Kea
About to indulge in its favorite meal of windshield wiper blades

Sterling Falls, Milford Sound
Twice as high as Niagara Falls, as high as a fifty story building.

The real fish story
Steve fishing...and catching.

Milford Track
What a magnificent hike.

Lyn at the Rose n' Reel
You name it and they had it on the farm

Goodbye New Zealand
On the way to Queenstown from Te Anau - Lake Wakatipu.

Comments

[sarah ross]

oh dear...
I think you should have figured out how to stay longer--I hate to give up the (vicarious) visit!! Safe travels...xxoo Sarah

[susan lynn]

I want to go with you guys next time you travel anywhere!