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This morning we went for a hike to the terminal face of the Fox glacier, because it was not closed like the Franz Joseph one was. The trail to the face was a rather tortuous one, through many large and small rocks, all trying to get Di to fall over them. However, despite the best efforts of the rocks, she stayed upright and made it to the path end without injury.

At one point of the trail, there was a sign stating “no stopping for next 200m”, presumably due to the risk of landslides. There was plenty of evidence of landslides all around us, with scarred cliffs, and waterfalls cascading over loose rocks. However, we figured that no matter what, we probably did not want to be in the “no stopping” zone or out of it, because with our luck, we’d run out of the zone and get hit by the landslide which did not pay any attention to the signage.

As we approached the terminal face, Trav noted a large piece of ice (~ 2′ x 1′) fall off the top of the face, into a pile of ice and rocks below. Seemed to us to be a pretty good reason why the closest people could get to the face was about 150m, since a chunk of ice that large falling on you might hurt a little.

Along the route to the terminal face was a little sign telling how back in the late 1800’s, an important figure in New Zealand history (Prime Minister? Premier?) came along and painted a watercolour of the glacier, which was apparently a very beautiful artwork. That information, we felt, was not as important as the fact that the bloke who painted it was named Fox, and just happily renamed the glacier after himself! Before he arrived, it had a completely different name, but after he arrived, he felt it should be named after him, so he just changed it’s name. What a conceited fellow…

After leaving the glacier, we headed north along the same road we’d travelled yesterday, toward Hokitika again. On the way, we stopped at a river that was very different in colour to the rest of the watercourses we’d seen. Whereas most of them were reasonably shallow and crystal clear, this one was a rather vivid shade of turquoise. We didn’t know why, but we stopped and had a look around the place, but were still no wiser when we left.

Arriving in Hokitika, we went to the supermarket to get some bread rolls and ham for lunch, since the bakery was closed, along with most of the town. It was apparently due to Westland Anniversary Day, but when we asked the person in the supermarket what the day signified, she had no idea. We asked another, and she had no idea either. Finally someone offered the suggestion that many years ago, there had been a horse race on that day, and so the holiday was a carry-over effect, even though the horse race was no longer run.

We went down to the beach to eat lunch and while we were there, we noted that the main purpose of the holiday was for the local male students to go down to the beach and big-note themselves in the hopes of impressing the girls. There was a large group of them all trying to be heroes not far from where we were, and one of them was trying to show how tough he was. “Go on! Hit me! Punch me in the chest! Go on!”, he urged his mates. Another fine entrant for the SPOTD award.

Not far out of Hokitika on the way to Arthur’s Pass is a sign pointing to an attraction called Londonderry Rock. We pulled over and went for the 15 minute walk through many small boulders to the extremely large rock that was the focus of the walk. Like most tourist attractions near a backwards dead-end hole like Hokitika, the rock had been vandalised, so all we really got to appreciate was the spray-can graffiti informing us that a girl named Lisa apparently slept around.

Continued onward to Otira Gorge and Arthur’s Pass, along a road that had many signs up telling motorists that caravans, trailers, and vehicles >13m in length were not permitted to drive on this particular route. We had been told that Arthur’s Pass was a rather narrow and winding road, so we began to wonder exactly what we were about to go through. The road did get very narrow indeed, and got down to a one-lane section on a steep section, where the traffic going downhill had to give way to traffic going uphill. There were small parking bays for downhill traffic to pull into, but as we were going uphill, it was not a problem for us to drive through. Perhaps going toward the west coast would have made driving conditions harder, but heading towards Christchurch, the road was not too bad, and certainly interesting.

The temperature dropped significantly too, and there was a reasonable amount of snow on the mountain peaks around us (remember, this is in the summer!). When at the glaciers, we had noted that we were in T-shirts, yet only 150m from the ice wall, and did not feel cold. At this point of the trip though, we were about 800m from the snow, and it was definitely cold enough to put the heater on in the car for a short while.

At the Arthur’s Pass township, we were just on the Christchurch side by a few hundred metres when a train pulled alongside us. Naturally, Trav could not let the challenge go without meeting it, and the roads were getting better, so we raced the train for several kilometres. It had the advantage of a straight, flat track, and we were stuck with roads that went up and down, and had several 45kph corners. After a while, the train track diverted from the road, and we ended the challenge, agreeing that the train driver was a big cheat for following the tracks…*grin*

Continuing onward, the road began to get a little straighter, although we were still high enough to be driving through clouds. It was at this point of the trip that we realised the windscreen wipers badly needed changing, blurring our view more than clearing it. Ah well, we just drove with them off, and kind of guessed our way along pretty easily.

Due to the rain forecast, upon arriving in Christchurch, we went to the Top Ten Holiday Park and managed to get the last cabin available. It was a very different standard to the accommodation in Fox Glacier, with two rooms, table, 4 chairs, 7 beds, 3 bookshelves, plates, bowls, cutlery, cooking utensils, stove (!), right down to dishwashing detergent, for only $33 (actually $29.70 with our discount card).

We decided to treat ourselves to a dinner in the city, and went and had roast dinners at a restaurant in the centre. After dinner, we wandered the tourist shops and got scared by the hideous prices they were charging for items we’d seen much cheaper elsewhere on the island. However, it did not matter, because the shop owners had obviously made deals with the Japanese travel group companies, and large groups of Asian shoppers were happily paying high prices for what we considered to be tacky rubbish.

The night ended with a tub of icecream (chocolate ice-cream, with chocolate fudge, and choc-chips - YUM!) as we watched the local news and saw the south part of the North Island was flooded (where we had been only a few days prior).

Onward to nowhere in particular tomorrow…

November 29th, 1999 | Category: NZ 1999, Travel | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL