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A bit Grey
After the beauty of Arthur’s Pass we found Greymouth to be a complete contrast and also very aptly named; grey, drizzly and void of people. I expect if the weather had been better it may have been a bit more appealing but I wouldn’t bet on it. We continued south to find somewhere to camp for the night and settled on Hokitika which appeared to be similar to Greymouth but slightly better. By 5pm it was pouring with rain and we were worried our little tent wouldn’t cope (did I mention it cost us 10 pounds and only had one layer like a kid’s tent so didn’t know the meaning of waterproof). As we were cooking, the rain turned torrential and we met a Canadian couple who were in the same boat as us (their tent was slightly worse if that’s possible). We smiled sweetly and asked the campsite owner if we could sleep in the TV room for the night. Our charm obviously worked as he gave the four of us keys to one of the chalets for free and we were saved from drowning!
We spent a little time looking round Hokitika (it didn’t take long) then continued down the coast towards the famous glaciers. We stopped briefly at Ross, a desolate old gold rush town which apparently is still mined today. There wasn’t a lot to do apart from look round a house that had been preserved from the gold rush and have a go in the stocks outside the old prison. When it was my turn I couldn’t let myself out as it was too heavy to lift and Craig wouldn’t let me out which the people driving past thought was hilarious. I did not.
The Glaciers
We decided to visit the two largest and most popular glaciers of 60 in New Zealand: Franz Josef Glacier and the Fox Glacier. These glaciers are constantly advancing and retreating and are some of the world’s fastest moving glaciers. Having never seen a glacier before (Craig said we had when in France but I don’t remember) I was completely speechless when I first saw them. They are literally white ice rivers winding through the rainforest and not that far from the coast. Viewed from afar they look huge but up-close are impossibly big, it’s quite unbelievable. We had planned to do a long days walking at Franz Josef but on arrival at Franz Josef village discovered that our route had been closed due to heavy rock fall and swollen rivers. Instead we did the regular walks to the glacier including walking up The Sentinal, a huge rock that was once covered by the glacier, as well as a walk that took you pretty close to the face of the glacier. This walk was also closed due to massively swollen river but many other people were still doing it so we decided to also. A very rocky and wet tramp (NZ speak for hike!) followed, it was pouring with rain but completely worth it. The glacier was very steep, shining white and had an ice cave at the base. We couldn’t quite see to the top because of the cloud but what we could see was amazing.
As the weather was so bad we didn’t want to stay around for too long and needed to dry off. Somehow the rain had got through our waterproofs so we were soaked. We headed 25km south to the Fox Glacier. The village was much nicer than Franz Josef, small and expensive but with a homely alpine feel. We drove to a look-out point which gave a pretty impressive view of the glacier (the rain had finally stopped) then to the start of the Chalet Hut Lookout walk which goes through the forest by the side of the glacier. We had nearly made it to the glacier when we met a massive river/waterfall which had doubled in size because of all the rain. Unfortunately it was much to fast and deep to cross so we had to return.
We found a free campsite at the end of a 25km seriously windy gravel track right on the edge of Gillespies Beach. We discovered that our gas stove didn’t work so cheese sandwiches were top of the menu again (we had them for breakfast and lunch). After the stormy day, the sun appeared and produced a multi-coloured sunset which was very beautiful. We also saw a Kea, alpine show-off parrot type bird. However, sandflies and a gloating Aussie cricket fan were on hand to annoy.
The Day of Walks
We got a surprise in the morning when we discovered we were really close to Mount Cook and Lake Matheson, shoddy guidebook! We walked around the lake and took loads of photographs of the beautiful snow-covered mountains. As the tourists piled in, we went back to the Fox Glacier to do the official walk to the base of the glacier. Close up, it had jagged ice formations and huge collapsed shelves of ice by the river. We reached to within 75m before rope stopped us going any further. Some very “special” people decided to go and touch it even after witnessing chunks of ice falling at random.
Very expensive petrol powered us down the highway via two big waterfalls and the uneventful Haast. We crossed the lowest alpine pass (Haast Pass) which has three pretty waterfalls, Thunder Creek, Fantail and Blue Pools but we missed out the latter due to waterfall boredom, then continued on to Wanaka and Queenstown.
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