On the way we had three little stops, the first one being in Ross, an old gold digger town. The Goldrush had been here after America as well and people in New Zealand profited from it being able to use more modern methods. After having a look at pictures from workers in the gold mines (of course neatly posing as was usual around 1880) I was not so convinced that it had been modern methods at all. It looked still like pretty hard work to me and digging with your hands mostly.
At Ross you could even give gold washing a try, but they want money for everything in NZ and also for this kind of 5-min-fun, so we skipped it. We had a look at an old hut though which had been owned by a Dutch family named de Bakker for 100 years. It was neatly set up the way it might have looked back in the gold rush time, so you could get a feel of it. In Hokitika we just had a look at the town center, stopped for a tiny second at a jade shop and saw a glorious pizza sign on the other side of the street: Fat Pipi Pizza… I wonder what kind of pizzas they might have… We also had a look at the beach, but it was just a miserable view: rain and a grey beach with lots of washed up old tree trunks spread all over the sand. The enormous rolling waves were fun to see though.
Off we went and only when we felt our hunger burn did we stop at a small cafe on the road side. The rain was pouring down now even harder so we enjoyed a few snacks and coffee and took our time. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before, but hunger and toilets are our main point of existing here. Either Tina or I feel a slight hunger, announce it to the other and off we go cooking or buying some food. We often laugh about it because it seems so unreasonable to eat away all day, but I suppose it might be caused having toast for breakfast every day, which is not really filling anyone’s stomach and I wonder how people all over deal with the effect you get from white bread which causes even more hunger after you have eaten it.
After what seemed like an eternity we reached the base town for the mighty famous Franz Josef glacier. It is named after the Austrian Kaiser, husband of Sissi. Nobody can pronounce the name of course, which is funny.
We had not booked a hostel in advance and so we needed to check with different ones and ended up at Montrose backpackers. We met two Canadians in our room, which were okay nice but the typical superficial behaviour, the guy even being a bit commanding in asking us what we were up to etc every time we met. We stayed two nights. After our arrival, so on our first afternoon, we had pre-booked tickets for a Kiwi sanctuary. Tina loves Kiwis a lot and was very much looking forward to see real Kiwis all the time I have been with her in New Zealand. After some time she infected me with it so we were both totally happy to go.
We entered a nocturnal habitat with some red lights (Kiwis cannot see red, so they are not disturbed by the light) and a lot of minor bush plants. Of course you need to be very silent and after some time one or two kiwis emerge. They are really cute, with little furry feathers, a small ball-shaped body with a very long beek (with nostrils at its end – the only bird that has this) to sniff and pick insects. Their sense of smell is the second best of all birds, only being outshone by vultures. They have also very strong legs which they use to kick each other or enemies. Kiwis are not very social apart from being with their partner and we saw some very cute little karate kicks there. We had also booked a VIP tour to go downstairs and see the hatching egg and a one-week-old kiwi chick and were told a great deal about this endangered species. It really can make you angry how thoughtless human beings are.
Settlers, 150 years ago, had introduced possums and rabbits into New Zealand. Nowadays their number explodes. There are 90 million possums and God knows how many rabbits in NZ (next to 4.5 mio humans). When the settlers saw the problem they introduced stouts (very aggressive little predators) to NZ to reduce possums and rabbits, but guess what? They found other species they liked better and who did not know how to defend themselves, because they never had any enemies: kiwis and other birds living on the ground and unable to fly. But kiwis are protected now and there are sanctuaries helping them to grow up, so they can reach adulthood and can fight their enemies better (remember the karate kicks?) On that evening we already had a look at the Franz glacier from its carpark (some 5km out of town), because there was good weather for about an hour. Amazing. But for the next day we had booked a walking tour through the valley to the glacier so we left it at that for the moment.
It was pooooouring again the next morning and luckily we were able to postpone the walk to the one in the afternoon. And man, were we lucky: no rain then! Wyatt (Earp), our guide for today gave us some rain gear, just in case, and off we went with a bus to the glacier carpark. We started our tour on the usual tourist path but at some point Wyatt just vanished into the jungle. It was real rainforest, which is a rare phenomenon: rainforest meeting glaciers, because usually you have too high temperatures and then the ice melts away. But here are two glaciers (the second, Fox, we visited later on) next to jungle and sea. As I was saying, Wyatt just duck into the undergrowth and we followed. I was the only one who had refused the heavy walking boots from the tour company as I could not put my soles into them and I could not walk without those so I just went with my sneakers. In the jungle, because of the heavy rain the days earlier, most paths were flooded to the brim, so I just got out of my shoes and walked barefoot. It was a little cold, but I had done the same at the Blue Mountains next to Sydney and it was just fine and also refreshing. Wyatt explained about plants and animals, told about the stout problem and then we emerged on a small sidearm of the glacier river and into the old river bed, a wide gravel field with occasional bigger rocks covered in moss or red stripes (old moss leftovers). We had a 1.5 hike in total up to the glacier passing many rain-caused waterfalls and Wyatt even got us some glacier ice-blocks out of the river. The glacier has receded much since its discovery 150 years ago and since 2008 it receded a lot more. Let’s hope it will still be there in few years. Getting closer to the glacier it was becoming a lot colder so I was actually glad that we walked back quite soon, this time on the tourist path, which meant I could leave my shoes on. The cool thing about getting cold feet is that afterwards when you are walking they are warming up a lot. The other cool thing today was that the hot pools we had also pre-booked were in the same building as the glacier tours so we just had to get our bikinis from the car and sit in the hot water of 40°C. After some time you get quite tired but I think we made it for about 1.5 hours, getting out every now and then to cool off.
The girls at the glacier/hot pool counter knew us very well at the end of the day: First I was not sure whether to take the tour in the morning because of the rain, but Tina wanted to go. Then it was too late so we postponed it to the next day because we thought we had a fixed appointment at the hot pools this afternoon (which we thought was another company). So we drove off to check with the pool company only finding out that we had to get back to the glacier center. They told us that we could get into the hot pool anytime so we could get a glacier tour this afternoon (instead of tomorrow)… Oh yeah and then I kept a girl busy with my hiking shoes problem, trying on every possible size and later on deciding that I kept my own shoes. Then we actually turned up for the glacier tour, and later again, with bikinis under our arms for the hot pools and if this was not enough we also forgot something in their lockers and had to return one more time.
Aaaah, those typical precise and punctual Germans…it is not us. The next day we left Franz – after a last peek from the parking lot again, this time with no clouds around the mountains at all – and drove off to Fox glacier some 50km further. We took a walk there as well, but stopped at the fence were a huge board told everybody not to cross and not to continue to the glacier any further. But as tourists are dumb: everybody continued! With the risk of their lives and those of their families. There were even people with babies on their arms. Our Franz guide had explained to us how unstable even the river bed and the side rocks are, so you could never know when rocks might slide. But as I had told myself many times on my trip: not my problem if people get in trouble for their own stupidity. After visiting the Fox we headed a few km back to Matheson Lake. Tina had spotted a board announcing it and so we went. It was not very spectacular today as its water was not very steady and there were also a lot of clouds covering the mountain range on its back. Mount Tasman and Mount Cook, two spectacularly high snow-covered mountains, were fogged in also when we had a flat white coffee with the perfect view from a terrace near the lake. What a pity.
We drove a couple of hours further, taking a minibreak at Bruce Bay – the worst case of sandfly attack ever. You could not stand there admiring the view on the tree trunk laden beach for one second. So we sprayed and we ran around and in the end we even fled. Horrible creatures. They also stick so close to you that there is always one or two entering the car with you no matter how quickly you went in and shut the door. We stopped again at Knights Point (a high cliff with a view onto some rocks down below in the bay) and then we came to Haast. This town consists of 4 parts. Haast beach, Haast junction, Haast town center and Haast pass. Of course wide spread and no real idea where to go, but we headed for the town center and there sat our motel/hostel, the Wilderness Backpackers. Our host was another horrible creature we met today. Very anti-German (oooh, there are soooo many of you) and very anti-service. But well, who cares. We got two upper bunk beds in a shared room. Warm and cozy.
The other two girls chose not to talk to us, but one of the girls rather threw us looks which I interpreted as ‘I don’t like you‘. Strange. The hostel had a wintergarden with plants and lots of couches in its center so there we happily stayed for a bit, in between having some chips without fish. As the owner had hung up nice papers which informed everybody that if they had not left at precisely 10 am he would charge another night we were very early with leaving. Our next stopover was not so far away, but we made a long trip out of it stopping everywhere and admiring the beautiful mountain and/or lake scenery. At Hawea Lake near Wanaka we checked into a pretty run down hostel (the hotel up front was not bad), but the hostess of the hostel was a great type and good to talk to. If we had any problems, she said, we should just come and get her. After putting our washing in the machine (and later on a line behind the hostel where the wind blew everything nicely dry for once) we headed down to the lake and just enjoyed ourselves: reading, relaxing and swimming in the chilly crystal clear water. There was nobody there at all. Fantastic! In the hostel we met the strange guy from Hemner Springs again – he seemed to follow us around from now on as he also turned up in Te Anau.
In the evening we hopped into Wanaka some 20 min further down the road to get some food supplies and to take a quick look at the lake. Nice, but ours was more beautiful and more lonely. The next day we wanted to go to Queenstown, again just 1-2 hours away. But when we hit the town center we both kinda looked at each other and both pratically blurted out: Let’s get outta here! The town was one big car queue and lots of pubs, cafes, shops, expensive activities (of which we found most of them unnecessary or just a lot too expensive (150$ for river rafting?? Come on!) and too many people! We just had a nice long look at this lake with its surrounding mountains as well and then turned and headed directly towards Te Anau, which would have been our next stop anyway. At the end of the very long lake (they tend to fill whole valleys between mountain ranges here) we took a small break at the Kingston cafe to help us stay awake and decide where to stay at Te Anau. It became the Holiday Motor Park for the first night and a cosy bed. We even watched a movie in the practically empty living room before going to sleep. After checkout we decided to try our luck at Te Anau Lakefront Backpackers for a tent space. And yes, they had exactly one left for 15$ pp. Wheeew! We talked a longer while to a very nice guy who unfortunately took down his tent when we built up ours. He was an American working half the year at a camp at Antarctica – wow! Pretty interesting guy. We found out that we and him would practically end up in Christchurch on the same day so we figured we could manage a coffee all three of us. Cool.
The rest of the afternoon we just spent outside on the lawn feeling like lazy seals. Again we read a lot or just lay there not moving. Aaaaah, doing nothing is great. At around 5pm we got up to have a coffee and then we walked to the town center, along the lake (yes, another lake), but there was nothing much there to see in town (except a great art work bird, a takahe which we took some photos with, as the bird was so patient with us not moving and everything). The lake was great though, what a pity that we did not get into it. Afterwards we drove over to the Wildlife Park, where there were rare birds to be seen. And we did see a lot we had missed earlier: the kaka and the kea, both big parrots. And then the Pukeko, the blue chick we often meet next to the road, and its almost extinct big brother, the Takahe, an enormous blue chick the size of a fat goose. Now I only miss the Tui, which sings like a gnawing door. We have heard it earlier but could never spot it in the trees.
The following night in the tent was a shere nightmare. It was max. 8°C and we just had basic camping gear (so no frost-proof sleeping bags). I awoke first at 1am, went to the ladies (it takes a long time to decide to get out of all the things you are rolled into and out into the cold) and then again at 4am – and this time I stayed awake. My feet were so cold in spite of the thick socks I had put on that I practically could hear the glaciers on them make way through my veins. At 7am I had enough and got up to get a hot shower. After this I finally came round to write my blog further which I hadn’t done in a week: in the cozy living room. At around 9 am we had breakfast and took our time to get ready to leave for the Milford Sound, approx.a 2-hour-drive away.
Nature here was awesome! It is everywhere, but here is just the wide Fiordland National Park with nobody even living there and just a few cars getting in and out. Huge mountains over 2.000m, giant lakes, mirror lakes that mirrored the mountains in the background perfectly on their surface (and felt a bit like the Lord of the Rings Dead Marshes as you could see rotten plants on the ground but luckily no dead people).
There were also snow-covered peaks where you can feel the next avalanche getting off, sun and chilliness – all together – and a hand-dug tunnel, which spanned at least 2km under a mountain. Wow! And in the end we reached the Milford Sound (=fiord). We had booked a boat trip with OrangeNZ and because it was orange they gave us a free slice of (orange) carrot cake and of course lots of infos on the tour. There were just 15 people on this boat which could take 200, so it felt great to be on a somewhat just-for-yourself trip with hardly anybody standing in your next photo’s way. Of course we are in late summer now, the equivalent at home would be September, so there are fewer tourists. The highlights on the boat trip were two big waterfalls. The boat got very close to one of them – just 1-2m away and we could feel and see the spray and the ripples the falling water caused. We also saw a few seals hanging around on a rock and enjoying the sunlight and the most stunning view of cause: the glacier-created steep mountains that formed the fiord. After 2 hours the tour was over and we were very tired, but made the 2-hour way back easily as it was – again – so full of stunning views. The next night in our tent was a lot more agreeable as it was 16°C now and felt a lot better, but at 4 am it began to rain and so I woke up again, but luckily drifted off to sleep shortly.
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