Monday and Tuesday, June 18 & 19

Monday, June 18

Greymouth to Franz Joseph

Overcast, the mountains socked in, we decided to head south and try the train trip at the end of our stay.  A weather report on Yahoo sends us south a little faster, as there is a front moving north east that could cause flooding and snow in the high country, ending in Auckland.  We may loose it in our southerly directions; regardless it seemed to follow us all day. 

We traveled with the coast, the highway separating the mountains from a bit of farm land and the sea. We could see the storm over the ocean, the water closest to land grey, a hundred feet out that lovely grey-blue and black beyond that. This part of the country has big rivers coming out of the mountains and they’re full of gravel. Some are not so full, just fingers running through their rocky beds.  I’m sure that in the spring they charge toward the ocean. The further we drove, the more full the rivers got, and they were often grey—glacial milk mixed with black sand bottom? 

The road took a turn away from the ocean and into the forest.  Here giant ferns line the forest floor and tall skinny pines block out the sky.  The roads become winding through here, narrowing and climbing.

We arrived in Franz Joseph, the site of the Franz Joseph Glacier around 3:30 p.m. Our first stop was the iSite to book a helicopter ride.  The employee there said she’d book the flight for us, but we probably wouldn’t see anything with the low-lying clouds.  Checking the weather forecast, she didn’t hold out much hope for tomorrow, either.  So we checked into the campground, then explored Franz Joseph a little.  Jim headed towards the glacier and in just a few minutes we arrived at the carpark from where most of the trails take depart. We could see small glimpses of the glacier, like a white, icy finger draped over the side of the mountain.  There is one trail that takes hikers within a couple miles of it; we’ll try it tomorrow.

Back at the campground, I tried to make a meat loaf.  Should be simple, but the finished product left a lot to be desired to make it a “comfort food.” Mostly it was the NZ ketchup that I put across the top. I should have tasted it before smothering the whole meatloaf in it.  Sweeter than ours, with an unknown, UNWANTED spice added.  No more NZ ketchup!  The camp has a spa.  We made a reservation to soak at 7:30 p.m.  On the way there, a lovely older couple followed us in and thought they’d be spending the time with us.  Our host quickly told them you had to make a reservation and they could have the half hour following us.  We spent a relaxing half hour soaking and headed back the motorhome for the night. 

But the story doesn’t end there. At 4:30 a.m., Jim’s phone rang.  He answered a call from Kaitlyn and all he could hear was crying and sniffling, then the phone hung up.  We both jumped up, immediately awake and dread-filled.  Neither phone had signal, so in record time we were both dressed, Jim unhooked the camper and we took off looking for cell-phone signal, praying the whole time.  Less than one kilometer toward town, my call to Kaitlyn went through.  She was on her way to work, happy as a lark, completely unaware that she had butt-called us.  Relieved we went back to camp and slept the rest of the night.

Tuesday, June 19

Flying Over the Glaciers

I’ll put it in perspective this way:  between the two of us, we took 410 pictures today!

When I woke up 3 hours after our 4:30 a.m. run into Franz Josef and looked out the vent window, I really thought we’d have to settle on a hike to the snout of the Franz Josef Glacier.  Jim was so convinced that we’d hike instead of fly that he was making our lunch for the trail: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, cookies and water. In a quiet moment, we heard a helicopter fly over.  Ten or fifteen minutes later another flew over the camp ground.  Then we headed to the showers and realized that it was sunny, the mountains were clear, and there just might be a chance we’d be flying after all. 

Jim made a reservation for us and a staff member from the holiday park took us into the village of Franz Josef to Glacier Country Heliport. They put us on a little later flight, so we went across the street and did a little souvenir shopping.  We didn’t have long though.  They sent an employee over to tell us check in would be early. I am very afraid of heights. I am not afraid of flying.  I didn’t think I’d be afraid of flying in a helicopter. However, there was that moment when the nose tipped down, the tail lifted and I realized that we were going to fly quite high in the air with not around us.  I squeezed Jim’s hand, closed my eyes for 10 seconds and opened them quickly, afraid I’d miss something.  From the next 30 minutes I had the biggest grin on my face!  To protect your ears from the noise of the helicopter and hear the pilot, we had on earphones but no microphones for us.  I think it’s because the pilot would get really sick of hearing people like me yelling, “THIS IS SOOOOOO COOOL!”  We went over the town and gained altitude.  When we arrive at the Franz Joseph Glacier (FJG), we were already quite high in the air.  We descended the glacier in an S pattern.  I know the pilot told us cool facts about the glacier, but I just kept thinking, “This is the coolest thing IN THE WORLD!”  He set the helicopter down on the ice and two of our passengers met their hiking group.  Claire and Will would spend the day descending the glacier, their last hurrah before returning to the UK after four years in Wellington (he is an audiologist…I could keep going).  The pilot went to the Neve (head) of FJG and left skid marks in the snow.  He told us why he was doing it, but I just kept thinking, “This is AMAZING!”  From there we flew over the Victoria and Cook Glaciers (there are 140 glaciers in 200 sq. km) and then we flew to the Neve of Fox Glacier (FG).  Here the pilot spent some time making skid marks in the snow and finally setting down the helicopter.  Before we landed, I looked up to the peaks and across the snow field and just praised God for this unimaginable beauty. We sunk to the step above the skids.  He went off and stamped down snow so we could walk out onto the glacier.  It was cool to see that just 2 or 3 inches below the top layer of snow was the mysterious blue of glacier snow. I got out first, took three steps and sank to my butt in glacier snow. I kept waiting for Jim to come get me out…he was busy laughing and taking pictures of me sunk to my butt in glacier snow.  The pilot went ahead of me and stamped more snow.  He said, “That should be good for you.”  I laughed as I was still hip deep in snow and called him a liar.  He laughed back and said, “It isn’t gonna hurt you.”  He was right, I pulled out of the whole, took two more steps and sank again! But revenge is sweet and Jim sank too! The pilot took our picture, both with his camera (we bought that picture for $200—what a racket!) and with mine. The peaks above us were the Tasman Peaks.  Above that was Cook’s peak, but wasn’t visible in the picture. Back in the helicopter and in the air, we toured the snow field we’d landed in, flew over the peaks and around the mountain to look for wild life.  A heard of Himalayan Mountain Goats was released here (he said when, but all I could think was…well, you know). Sure enough, he scared a herd that began the unimaginable run down the vertical mountain face.  The pilot pointed out the alpha goat.  He was easy to find:  he went face to face with the helicopter.  I thought he’d jump off the mountain to challenge the helicopter!  We saw Fox Village, the snow of the glaciers opening to the valley below and the sea beyond.  Within minutes we set down on the landing pad. The pilot graciously answered questions:  all I could think to ask was where he got his training.  He assured me that flying these mountains takes a lot of skill.  Jim talked helicopters with him and I just kept thinking, “This is the COOLING thing we’ve done so far!”

Another gift shop called my name and we spent ten more minutes shopping. Across the street we stopped into a coffee shop for lunch…best lunch in NZ to date but the coffee isn’t getting any better. Our driver from the Holiday Park offered to pick us up when we were done, but we decided to walk off our lunch.  I never regretted that decision.  The day was cool in the shade, pleasant in the sun. We got a close look at the sub-alpine rainforest of the area and it just felt good to walk.

Looking at the map we planned to go about 280 km to Cromwell, NZ.  Just a few km down the road was Fox.  They had a cute little coffee shop at the iSite.  However I think I’ve learned my coffee lesson:  we ordered a pot of tea and a scone to share.  Back on the road Jim decided to drive to the carpark at the base of the Fox Glacier. It was a lovely drive through the rainforest and beside the glacier river coming off Fox. Signs in the carpark said that we could get within 200 m of the snout.  The trail looked pretty level, mostly through the riverbed, so we started walking.  We walked all the way to the view area 200 m from the snout! We didn’t expect to, it just kind of happened, but we’re so glad we did! The snout had to be between 20 – 40 meters high, we really couldn’t tell. We remembered that this glacier is advancing 4 meters/day.  We felt triumphant on the hike back—we stood on the head of this glacier and walked to the base of it!  There were two signs on the way into the carpark.  About halfway from the main road was a sign that said, “The end of the glacier in 1750.”  Half way between that sign and the parking lot was another that said, “The end of the glacier in 1850.”  It was hard to believe that it had receded that much in such a short time.  About halfway down the trail we saw three groups up on the glacier.  At the view area, we watched the first group walk down the final few meters to the trail. We also saw a couple on the trail who were on the White Island Tour. 

We left Fox at 5 p.m. with the sunset to our right.  We weren’t going to make it to Cromwell and settled on Haast, 86 km away.  Good thing we “settled.”  Within a few minutes of climbing away from the ocean and back into the mountains, the temperature dropped 2 degrees C and frost was already forming on the shoulders. Jim slowed down out of respect for black ice.  We had a tough time finding the holiday park.  We turned down a road with a service sign for gas, food, camping and motor homes.  Fourteen km later we turned around and went back to the main road.  Not 2 km later we found the Top 10 Holiday Park right on the highway!  Despite the Asian driver that tried to scrape the front of the motor home with his rental car, we’re settled for the night. Tomorrow: Milford Sound?

Best day to date!

Jim’s Random Thoughts:

·      Kim was grinning from ear to ear in the helicopter.

·      Standing at the head of the glacier was phenomenal.  Seeing the blue ice below our feet was amazing!

·      The agility of the goats charging down the mountain…WOW!

·      The glacier ends in a rain forest!