Author: sigormley

With the Catlins Coast behind us, we popped into Dunedin had a quick squizz at the ornate railway station, complete with a tiled mosaic of various train paraphenalia, and drove the winding road out to the end of the Otago peninsula. The road hugged the coastline tightly, and actually looked as though it was on reclaimed land, as there was hardly ever more than a foot to the sea, and meant I actually had to look where I was driving. However, we had the luxury of tarmac, which is a lot more than can be said for a certain “scenic” route we took yesterday!
At the end of the peninsula, the Royal Albatross have been nesting there for the past 80 odd years, oddly choosing the site once the Kiwis had put a few huge cannons on it, and also having their hefty (500g) eggs used to make rather large omelletes! It is just coming to the end of the nesting season, so there were a couple of chicks waiting to be fed, although they are larger than their parents and look like huge lumps of cottonwool in the grass. We’d seen different Albatross back in Tasmania, and you know they are big, but seeing photos of these huge birds next to humans puts it into perspective, as their body is about the same size as a human torso, and they have a wingspan of 3 metres. Whilst we watched the chicks, a young Albatross was gliding around, taunting us all with how easy it was for him to fly (I don’t think I saw a flap of wings), and how hard it was to photograph – as you can see!

With our internet cravings satisfied in Te Anau, the only plan for the day was just a drive to the south coast. That was until we spotted some DIY (i.e. free!) caving at Clifden. Now we’ve been in quite a few caves on our travels now, so didn’t expect to be surprised by what we found. What did surprise was where they expected us to go. Helpful reflective strips marked the path, which was great until it reached a point where the roof had caved in, and they expected you to clamber between the rocks. I’m not a claustrophobic person, but there was no way I could (or would) squeeze myself through those cracks!

The road to Milford Sound is a bit like the Great Ocean Road, funded by the government during the depression, and essentially just a nice road to drive along. The main feature of the road is the Homer tunnel, hand-carved through what looked like a lot of very hard rock, and at a steep decline that runs for about 1km in the dark. On our way out we saw some crazy cyclists about to cycle up it, not my idea of fun! (Dad, did you do that?!)
The Milford sound, or more accurately Milford Fiord can only really be seen by boat, and from the plethora of tours, we chose the one that went the furthest and had free soup. As soon as we left port, the Mitre Peak dominated the skyline, all 6000+ft (that’s 1.5 Ben Nevis’) of it that rises nigh on vertically from the sea. Heading out to sea, the hills were lower and rounder as we had passed over the fault line between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates (could be wrong there…), with the sharp tall peaks on one plate, and the lower hills on another – geology in action! The whole of New Zealand is geologically new and has loads of earthquakes – can’t wait to experience one, as long as it’s not too big!

Thinking we’d make our last ride before leaving Queenstown a gentle one, we chose a paraflight, where a parachute is towed behind a boat for great views over the lake. We were strapped into harnesses one more time, and winched out the back of the boat, and up to about 100 metres high. I thought this was all very nice, a bit chilly but nice views over the early morning clouds, whereas Caroline wasn’t too sure about the whole thing. Then we started to fall, and fall, until we were a few metres from the lake. That’s about the time I seriously considered that there was something wrong with the boat, and made plans for getting wet. At the last moment we were tugged up high again, in another example of the Kiwi sense of humour. Still it got the adrenalin pumping, and it wasn’t even 10am!
With that in mind, we high-tailed it out of Queenstown, to save our hearts and wallets from all the excitement. The sun beat down as we drove through to Te Anau, and started up the Milford Road, the easy option to get to the Milford Sound, compared to the Milford Track!

As if jumping off a big cliff wasn’t enough excitement for one day, in the afternoon we slipped/squeezed into wet suits one more time and made for the rapids of the Kawarua river. With five rafts to choose from, we wimped out and opted for the “dry boat”, as in they promised not to turn the thing over on purpose. The first section was quite gentle, the clear fast moving river slopped over a couple of rapids and gave us a little bump, but nothing too bad, we even had time to have a swim in the river. Then the real rapids came. With our guide ‘The Chief’ screaming for us to paddle, the raft headed for the huge wave in the middle of the rapids, a few bumps later and I’d left my seat, fortunately not as much as the woman behind who’d left the raft. We tried to pick her up, but the currents were too strong and so left her to climb onto another raft. More rapids were around the corner, with waves coming into the boat there was nothing to do but focus on paddling, and enjoy the splashes! It was knarly!

Saving some money as well as getting back to nature, and our first Department of Conservation (DoC) campsite night was a success, but with the luxury of flushing loos and a shower in the van, it wasn’t really roughing it. Driving through the Southern Alps on the Haast pass was a treat for the eyes when they weren’t on the road, with huge mountains on each side and ice (or possibly glacier!) topped to boot.
The Kiwis proved a match for the Aussies naming skills with the Blue Pools, ice cold, clear and blue, and a wobbly swing bridge on the way too. The scenery continued to amaze for the rest of the drive to Queenstown, and it’s easy to see why the area is home to loads of the Lord of the Rings film sets. Queenstown is also activity central, so as a warm up we booked on to a paraflight, a parachute towed behind a boat, but alas the wind again put the stops on us, so there’s only one thing to do – wait until tomorrow…

After a full day of ice hiking yesterday, it seemed only fair to take it easy for the Fox Glacier (no, not the mint variety). So, it was off to the helipad to get a lift halfway up the glacier to where the ice is smooth (helps the helicopter land!). The Fox Glacier is a couple of kilometres bigger than the Franz Josef, and flows between the peaks of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook, the two tallest New Zealand mountains, and starts from a neve that gets 45 metres of snow a year (yes, forty five!), and luckily for us, not a drop whilst we were there, the weather gods have been shining on us! Both the glaciers move at a couple of metres a day, not that you can really see it.
From where the helicopter landed we could see a huge ice fall, making the glacier really like a frozen river. The ice was even clearer and bluer than yesterday, and although solid it was so clear that it looked like thin ice on water and could break at any time. Jeff the guide meandered his way across the ice and found us caves to climb through and up, getting only slightly muddy in the process, as well as freezing ourselves onto the glacier. Before long it was time to climb back in the chopper, in what is the first time we’ve used helicopters as a means of getting somewhere instead of scenic flights, cool! Well, that’s the last glacier blog for a while, I think wearing the same woolly socks for two days straight is pushing it!

Well, the title gives it away a little, Franz Josef is actually a rather large glacier, and today we had the pleasure of climbing a fair way up it! With all the thermal layers we could muster, and a double helping of woolly socks we walked to the base of the glacier and strapped on our crampons (big metal boot spikes), tucked our trousers into socks mountaineer style and set off up the steep face of the glacier, stamping our feet to get a good grip as we went. To begin with we were on the dirty grey foot of the glacier, but before long we were up in pristine blue ice, with our guide Bruce cutting steps as we went up and down and across crevasses. All around us the ice was melting and forming streams, although standing on 80 metres of ice means it’ll take a while to melt through! Eight fun filled hours later we were back at the bottom, exhausted and with a two mile walk back to the bus. I think the chicken nuggets for tea were well deserved!