The weather was not supposed to be as good today, but as we opened up the back door to look at the mountains it looked like someone had forgotten to tell Huey. Crystal clear, yet again. There was no rush today. A slow breakfast and then I bought some more Internet time so Zuz could do some required uni work. It did not go to plan due to connection issues with the uni. Oh well. Pretty amazing though, when you think about it. Sitting in a campervan with a laptop in a very wild location, being connected to almost anywhere in the world. It truly is becoming a smaller world.
So then it was time to hit another glacier. The Franz Josef was our next port of call. Yet another road under repair for the summer peak. We packed our daypack with no expectations of how far we would go or how long we would take. Now that sums up the ideal holiday spirit. We walked to the glacier viewpoint through some lovely forest on the hills that were probably deposited only some 100’s of years ago or so. At the view point one of the most interesting things was the schematic of where the glacier was at certain years going back to 1851. It shows how dynamic the process really is. There was even a big lake between 1939 an 1949. We decided to go out to the terminal face some 1.5 to 2 km along the riverbed. Let me tell you this was not a boring walk by any means. The waterfalls to the side of the valleys would be the major attraction near anywhere else. But here the poor buggers are nothing more then a sideshow.
As we got closer the glacier dominated more and more of the skyline. It was a lot steeper than Fox and it truly looked as though it did have a different personality. For starters, it looked a hell of a lot more stable. But, hey looks can be deceiving. We got to the rope that states ye shall not go any further, but were still pretty close at probably 80-100m. Now that might not sound too close, but when this thing is that massive, it feels very close. Not much time had passed until it was reinforced why the no go zone exists. Rocks and ice was falling off the face constantly. Not huge stuff, but big enough to leave you fubar.
It was also hard to get a reference on the size of the rock falls. Later we saw on of the guided tours up on the glacier and wow, this thing is huge. Again, we could have stayed all day watching the rocks fall. Now that may sound silly, but to stand there in awe watching mother nature ply her trade so quickly in the scheme of things is almost mesmerizing. A wonderful experience that we finally managed to drag ourselves away from and head back via one of the many spectacular waterfalls near the face. The rocks were so spectacularly patterned, works of art on their own.
Back to the van to bid a fond farewell to the glaciers for this trip and headed along the partially constructed road, following a roller who told us to pass onto the other side of the road, over a nice hump of loose dirt. Well, much wheel spinning later and we were free and heading through Franz Josef very happy to have visited.
We continued along the coast and stopped at a Maori gallery and started talking to the dude who was on his second day on the job. It was like we were the first people he had seen in 6 months. Either that or someone had way too much coffee this morning? Aside from that, the artwork was amazing. The 3500-year-old whalebone swords were most impressive.
We escaped his grasp and headed to Hokitita were we visited the fish and chip shop and the Jade factory. The former was ok, but the later was truly wonderful with some extremely grand and expensive works inside. They also had many a slab of jade cut to 8mm in thickness with a light source behind them. Now there is the work of a true artist. They even had a jade carving workshop where you could watch the carvers at work. Had pieces in differing stages of completion to show the progression. We had to laugh at the “Please don’t feed the jade carvers” sign. If only one had 1000’s to spend, you would go crazy. As it was, we bought Zuz a lovely pendant. I liked the raw chunks, maybe next time.
We left Hokitita and headed for Arthur’s Pass after filling up the van and going through a few weird roundabouts. These had a rail line going straight through the middle of them. What the? The second one was even under construction. Now why would you not build the new roundabout away from the rail line? Beats me? We continued through more snow-covered mountains, under rock shelters and waterfall diverters over the road.
We stopped at a lookout where the car was attacked by a Kea. Further up the road we crossed a huge new viaduct and had to stop at the lookout to marvel at the impressive bit of engineering and thank god we did not have to follow the ‘old road’. We carried on to Arthur’s Pass and were going to stay at the DOC, but as it was wedged between the highway and the rail line and just off the station carpark we decided to head a further 9km down the road to Klondyke corner. It was nice and open and the setting sun was beautiful on the mountains. I decided to have a shower, so as the area only had a very cold river, I had to use the one in the van. Very small. It was like having a shower in a Czech pension. But got the job done in the end.
Then we proceeded to relax, until we heard a tapping on top of the van, which was a little annoying, but could live with it. Then on the under carriage. Now that’s where we draw the line. It could do some nasty damage under there. So there we were in near darkness trying to chase these little F***ers (Kea’s) off. Finally they went to bed fairly late. We cooked “glass noodles” for dinner. YUK!! Then downloaded yet more photos and sat writing the diary whilst polishing off the Gentleman Jack. Life is good.