East coast black sand beach
The water is freezing cold, so don't let the color fool you
This animal looks oddly familiar...New Zealand Fur seal.
Beach campsite near Westport. The clouds broke long enough to cook some curry.
Punkaiki blow holes.
Fiddleheads are EVERYWHERE
After the glacier hike. I have never been so happy to be so wet!
Fox Glacier from the hike up through the forest.
Jacksons Bay lobster boat named after my sister.
The blue pools on the way to Haast. Looks like Listerene.
Midnight moon on Lake Ohau (?)
South Lake Mavora campsite....just behind me is where they filmed Fangorn Forest.
Bathing Hole.Sandfly nightmares
If there is one thing everyone forgets to mention about New Zealand in their "oh right...I almost forgot" moment it's the sandflys. Well im not going to forget and iI'm going to warn you all that as wonderful and exotic and lush and remote as it is here, there are sandflys just about everywhere. They look like big fruit flys, and they bite. The bite doesn't swell up or hurt for about 72 hours, so just when you think the swarm that you snuggled with last night didnt have a feeding frenzy on your exposed flesh, a few days go by and a violent surge of sandfly toxins enter your bloodstream and set off a feverish race of violent itching. its terrible and only a big glass of wine, and an anti-histamine ease the pain. The bugs inThailand, Cambodia and Vietnam were nothing compared to the New Zealand Sandfly.
Wet n' Wild Glacier fun!
On the west coast, about 100 kilometers north of the township of Haast, is Fox Glacier. There are a number of glacier here, but Fox is the lesser visited of the 2 major hitters. (Franz Joseph being the major attraction)
We had camped off a 4x4 road, north of Lake Paringa for the night, and due to the rain (I'll get into this later) we took off about 9 am to see the glacier. We pulled off the highway down the Department of Conservation road that leads to the glacier but were halted at a gate indicating the road was closed. DAMN! Not more than a few minutes later a park ranger pulled down the road and opened the gate but warned us that due to a landslide the road was closed yet again further down but that we should be able to at least see the glacier from there. Prying further into the situation, It turns out that there has been biblical proportions of rain in the past few days and landslides have threatened to wreak havoc on the west coast. We were able to see the glacier, but only from a afar, and so my impending malase and disheartening gloom got a little more intense. I have never seen a glacier, and St. Marys doesnt really count in my book, and so seeing this and perhaps touching this was really important to me!
FEAR NOT...
There was a company in town that hired guides that would not only take you to the terminal face of the glacier, but take you up on the glacier for a hike around about halfway up! So thats what happened later that afternoon. So it's been raining all day and this makes for all kinds of rivers which cascade down the glacier and into the crags and crevices, only adding to the fun. Because it's New Zealand and everything is squirelly, exciting and backwards, this glacier is surrounded by temperate rainforests and is only about 15 kilometers from the sea! It's a phenomenon that is only found in New Zealand thus enhancing the reality of what a wondefully crazy place this really is. And for those of you who miss it... ask me about my my unholy intestinal distress that plagued my journey halfway up the ice flow. I thought about sharing it here, but I think there are only a select few of my readers who really care about this sort of thing!
The rest of the drive up the west coast was rainy and grey and indeed proved impossible to sightsee. (literally you couldnt see more than a few hundred meters off the road and so "seeing sights" was impossible.) Where is could I popped off to snap a a few photos before heading back across to the the east coast to see Kaikoura. (again...rain....so the Kaikoura mountain range that falls into the sea was a sightseeing nightmare.)
I'm headed off to Abel Tasman to go kayaking and hiking for 6 days, and will be away till just after Christmas. Consider this everyones holiday greeting and will someone please listen to the John Denver Chirstmas album for me? I thought I had it on my iPod but I dont and it's really hard to get through this holiday away from the family without this album! Nic, im counting on you for this!
Merry Chirstmas everyone!
J
(and sorry about the blue tone of this post, the rain kind of just brings it out in me...)
1 comment:
Oh, right...yeh...i did forget to mention that!actually i remember the ones in Australia to have been even worse. Those suckers don't get scared when you try to slap them away, they think its a game, and keep coming back for more of your blood! At least you got to see those amazing sites. If you do head over to Frans Joseph glacier the drive is amazing, the tunnel you go through at the top of the mountain is like going into a mine shaft...very difficult, chlostrophobic, but I bet you can do it, you've made it through the tunnels in Nam. Leaving for Tuscon on Monday, escaping the 2degF weather that is about to hit Denver. But maybe when I get back there will be enough snow for a canoe ride. Have a very merry Christmas!! Thanks for the txt last night as well. :))))))))
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