Subject: December 26: A couple of glaciers (not really), two national parks (really), and a familiar city
Date Sent: Fri, January 1, 2010 6:16:22 PM
Kia ora,
Today was the longest driving day of the trip -- just under 700km -- and that is a lot for New Zealand, especially when there's also a few hours of sightseeing involved!
We started from Wanaka early, around 8am or so. Got lost trying to get out of town, used the GPS, found the way back, turned the GPS off. As it turned out, we were on the right road all along, but a road sign before the intended turning confused me and made me think I was going in the wrong direction. Oh well.
We had to get to Christchurch by tonight for Priya's flight back to India the next morning. The most direct route between Wanaka to Christchurch cuts across the country and is (probably) not very scenic. Our route today was North through Mt. Aspiring National Park, then along the west coast, passing by two glaciers along the way, then across the country via Arthur's Pass National Park to Christchurch. 700km is about 10 hours of driving time, plus any sightseeing time at the glaciers and national parks, plus any time for other stops (food, gas, etc). So it was going to be a long day... or so we thought.
The entire drive was very very scenic -- mountains, lakes, waterfalls -- same as yesterday, but a lot more of them! Add to that a couple of glaciers and oceanfront scenery! Mt. Aspiring National Park had viewpoints along lakes and waterfalls -- beautiful. (and the clouds added to it's "majesty"). But our first "real stop" was Fox Glacier.
There is an offshoot from the main highway that goes to a parking lot for the glacier, and a sign there tells visitors the glacier is "1 hour roundtrip" walk. We had both seen plenty of glaciers before (me in Canada and Alaska and Priya in the Himalayas) so I wasn't actually too thrilled about being there. (I was also coughing and sneezing a lot by now -- really bad cold). We walked to the first viewpoint about 5 minutes from the parking lot. You can see the glacier from there. I wanted to go back. Priya conviced me to go forward... so we did the whole trail. Along the way we had to cross a couple of streams (stepping over rocks). The first one was no problem at all... but on the second one we both stepped on "the wrong rock", our leg dropped into the stream, and we got water inside our shoes. This was COLD glacial water, which was not very comfortable! I have had that happen in Alaska too, with the only difference being that Alaska had mosquitoes and this place and other flies that bite people's eyes and make them swollen and half-blind.
Ok, so those were all the negatives about this place. But when you're traveling you've got to take the good with the bad (or bad with the good)... and there was plenty of good stuff too. The views were INCREDIBLE! The glacier has receded a lot in the last few hundred years and it's created a long valley where a river now flows (meltwater from the glacier). Into this river gets dumped water from a lot of streams around. Do you remember I said the word "valley"? Well, there are mountain peaks on both sides of the river, and those streams are actually coming from the top of the mountains -- which means really tall waterfalls all along the range! The glacier itself was dirty brown at its terminus, and the walk doesn't go all the way there. There is a rope barrier with lot of signs saying "Danger, dont cross" ... we didn't cross it. It is an impressive glacier though -- very tall and the blue color was visible through all the brown dirt.
The entire roundtrip walk including stops for pictures took us about 45 minutes. By the end it had started to drizzle again... when we got back to the car I changed my socks.
Next "planned" stop was Franz Joseph glacier. We had lunch first in the town of Fox Glacier before moving on. By the time we got to Franz Joseph Glacier, the rain had really started to move in. We went up to the parking lot and saw the sign saying "1.5 hours roundtrip" walk to the glacier. We didn't take this walk and kept driving on...
We drove through Arthurs Pass National Park (which reminded me a little bit of Hwy 50 in Colorado -- Monarch Pass), but we didn't spend too much time there stopping to take pictures. Saw a few more kea birds and yes, more waterfalls... and then finally arrived in Christchurch at 8:00 pm. But not before seeing a sign on the road advertising "pony poo" for $2 per bag. Yes folks, the REAL THING! (no, I didn't buy any).
Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant in town (where they were hiring "experienced, not lame staff" and the toilets were "through [this door], down the stairs, up the stairs, etc").
Interesting people, these New Zealanders....
From Ishaan's camera:
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From Priya's camera:
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| Dec 25 | Contents | Dec 27 |