New Zealand Day 25, 26 – Franz Josef, Hokitika and Arthur’s Pass

Triple waterfall en route to Franz.

When we woke the weather had turned a bit and it was raining, but the sun kept trying to come out so we decided to wait a little before heading to the Franz Joseph glacier. According to the LP, it was a longer walk than Fox, but had a more impressive terminal and overall look. We got to the carpark around 12pm and there was no change in the weather, so we got our waterproofs on and set off – eager to compare the two.

The longer walk wasn’t too much of a problem in theory, until we got 15 minutes into it and the rain increased in intensity and we lost all the wind cover we’d had before. If you’ll pardon my French, it was fucking horrible out there! Halfway down there was a waterfall plunging down right near the walkway but the rain and wind meant getting the camera out was a nightmare. We trudged onwards to see the glacier, again having to climb up a couple of hills in the process which wasn’t helping our moods.

Caution: Pizza makers ahead.

When we got down to the viewing platform – it did look spectacular, but we both agreed that we preferred Fox. There seems to have been a few landslides or something at Franz Joseph of late, because a large portion of the terminal looks like a quarry! You can see that it is ice underneath, but with all the cloud cover wind and rain there was no way we were going to enjoy it as much as yesterday so we scamped back towards the van as quickly as we could. Annoyingly the wind had changed for the way back and was now pelting our faces with icy rain, needless to say we arrived back drenched and cold.

Boom! Glacier number two.

We’d already booked our second night at the campsite – so headed back there to warm up and regroup. Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad and there was little else we could do apart from head to the pub! One that we’d seen around the corner was doing a happy hour deal for food and beers, and they even had a bloody roast dinner on the menu so we arrived around a minute after the deal began and stayed for a couple of hours by the fire.

Afterwards we headed back to the hot pools and soaked ourselves again – it was so much nicer in there than any others we’d tried at Rotorua or Hanmer Springs, much smaller and set right in the rainforest with had really nice facilities (unlike the others which were like something from a 1980s leisure centre in slough). Plus it was cheaper than the larger resort style places too – we were glad we’d talked our way into the two day pass!

Safety first.

We were up and about “early” the next day, as we intended on a big one. First, driving back up the coast a couple of hours to Hokitika which in itself was fairly unremarkable but it was home to the National Kiwi Centre. Given our love for all things small and furry we were keen to go and see them in their enclosure. Apparently you can go and attempt to see them in the wild in a few places on the south island, but sightings are rare. Once place in particular is apparently crawling with them – but we met a Polish chap who worked there (Stewart Island) for 12 weeks and didn’t see any! The other reason for our visit was the fact that they had daily eel feedings at 1pm, hence our rush to arrive on time.

Eels up inside ya!

We made it with half an hour or so to spare so went and had a look around. The place itself could probably do with a lick of paint here or there, but admission is fairly cheap and the staff were really nice so you don’t mind. Similar experiences we’d seen with live Kiwis elsewhere cost three times as much. Along with the eels and kiwis, they also have a couple of tuatara which are either big lizards or small dinosaurs depending on your views on evolution. They also have a whole load of whitebait in a central aquarium swimming about. Whitebait in NZ are really small, translucent fish about the size of your little finger and ‘whitebaiting’ is apparently the no1 thing to do with your time during the season.

Driving around we’d seen loads and loads of small shacks and caravans at the sides of rivers that are apparently a home away from home for the fishermen – most complete with TV’s heaters and a small beer fridge!

Before eel feeding we snuck into the kiwi enclosure before anyone else had to check them out. It’s a pretty large room, with two glass walled environments that look just like the NZ bush, at night, inside. The room is really dimly lit to recreate the night during their opening hours as the little kiwis are nocturnal, cameras are banned too. It took us a few minutes to spot one but soon enough we saw the female feverishly rooting about with her long pointed beak in the soil. We were shocked by how big it was! I thought they were tiny, but she was larger than a big chicken and the beak was about 30cm long.

We left to check out the eels – and were most excited after missing out last week. After a 10 minute eel history lesson (which was amazing – they swim all the way from NZ to Tonga to breed, then the young drift back as tiny glass eels – it takes them over 30 years to mature to breeding age- they can crawl over a kilometer over land in between rivers and the sea – and they live to over 150 years old!!) it was feeding time. We took turns and were given some large tweezers and a tupperware pot of diced ox hearts to dangle towards them. The guide was very careful about getting us to place our hands in the right place as they can apparently get a bit bitey! It was WEIRD. They see you with the meat and raise up out of the water to grab it from the tweezers, but four or five at a time so it’s mildly horrific but fun at the same time. She even let us touch them – they feel like a hard boiled egg out of the shell.

We went back to watch the kiwis get fed then had to head off as we were going to tackle Arthur’s Pass. It’s a stretch of national park based around a route through the mountains from one coast to another, named after an old pioneer that ‘found’ it (some Maori already knew it was there).

It took an hour or so to get into the serious mountainous region of the pass, and soon we were back to winding around up and down massive hills through some stunning scenery – the fact that there is a road through there capable to carrying heavy trucks and buses is a feat in itself. At one point we drove under a man-made waterfall which looked like a giant concrete slide and directed the river over the highway, it looked weird.

Kea - the alpine pigeon.

After a stop off or two to take in the views down over the gorge, and an encounter with some Kea that wouldn’t get off the roof of the van until we were driving off at about 50kph we got into the ‘town’ of Arthurs Pass. There wasn’t really much going on, and the weather was pretty changeable going from sunny to a downpour and back again within 15 minutes so we had some lunch near the walking track for the Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall. Lisa wasn’t too keen for the hour long return trek to see it, as her shoulder was quite bad that day so I set off alone – given we were pushed for time I pretty much ran the entire way there, which seemed like a good idea as I set off but on a belly full of mushroom soup and bacon croutons I was almost sick multiple times on arrival at the viewing platform – so couldn’t really enjoy it all that much!

My queen of Castle Hill

To Lisa’s amazement I arrived back in 30 mintues and promptly collapsed in the van exhausted. We continued on (eventually) and got through the worst of the mountains and into the valley on the other side of the pass. The view behind us of the mountains was unbelievable but we didn’t have any time to hang around as we hadn’t even decided where to stay that night and we were still a couple of hours outside of Christchurch.

Devil's Punchbowl

Being in a hurry soon went out of the window however, as we kept coming across more lookouts! First was a cave system which you could crawl through unguided (but Lisa wouldn’t let me). As we were stood on top and looking around we both thought (once again) how much it looked like scenes from LOTR, then low and behold another 5 minutes down the road was Castle Hill – where they actually did some filming.

We couldn’t resist jumping out again for a quick look around – which then turned into an hour long romp around the countryside exploring the rock formations, it looked like Bodmin moor but supersized!

By the time we left there the sun was setting and Christchurch was still another hour away. We frantically searched for a campsite in the nearby towns but nothing was coming up and it got dark – then, as we were getting resigned to arriving somewhere in Christchurch at 9:30pm we saw a sign in a random little town for one 5km away and went for it. Fortunately, the very beardy owner was still up and we got a spot – and for cheap too!

It’d been a bit of an epic day, but we really enjoyed ourselves and were glad how the west coast had panned out in the end. Tomorrow we planned on taking it easy and maybe seeing a bit more of Christchurch.

A fitting farewell to the mountains!