We woke to more rain, not as windy as the night before but very wet! No signal so can’t check the forecast, but it looks set in for a while so we decide to drive to Hokitika where we should get a signal and check the weather and make a plan. On arrival the rain has stopped, although clouds hang heavy inland where we had been intending to go. The weather looks drier for the next two days so we decide to look round town then press on south to glacier country, having booked a helicopter flight over the glaciers at 10.30 tomorrow morning.
There are two things to tell you about Hokitika.
There have long been Maori in the area as pounamu or greenstone is abundant. This nephrite jade took the place of durable metals for the Maori, used both for tools and decoration, and today shops selling greenstone are big business with tourists. Also, the beach here ends up strewn with driftwood, which soon gets formed into artworks by locals and travellers alike.
Pressing on we passed through Ross, famous for having yielded the largest gold nugget ever found in New Zealand, the 3.1kg ‘Honourable Roddy’, named after the Minister of Mines, bought by the government and given as a coronation gift in 1910 for King George V. Despite the fact that they had it specially mounted in an elaborate setting it was melted down to decorate a tea service!
We also passed Pukekura, of no particular note except there is a model of a giant sandfly outside the local museum, which we photographed as it is becoming the bane of our lives … well to be honest they get Chris more than me, but the bites certainly itch!
Arriving in Franz Josef, we checked in to The Rainforest Retreat and crossed our fingers …
We woke to the whirly sound of helicopters and bright blue sky!
We were so excited and while we waited for our flight we looked round town and saw lots of activities at the glaciers, all vying with one another trying to claim our tourist dollar!
Our trip was in a small helicopter which we shared with a family of four from England, the lady especially excited as it was her 40th birthday!
We took off and flew over Fox Glacier first, then looked towards the coast seeing its melt waters heading to sea.
We flew higher, reaching 12,000ft, with views of Mount Tasman …
… and Mount Cook …
… and Lake Pukaki …
… then landed on the Franz Josef snowfield where we were able to get out and take pictures. It was all so amazing, so white, so sparkly, so huge!
We made our way back over Franz Josef, with its much wider trail of meltwater and moraine, and the township on the right where we landed. The whole experience lasted 47 minutes and it was so special.
Franz Josef (named after the Austro-Hungarian emperor) and Fox (after the British prime-minister), with Tasman, are the three largest glaciers in the Southern Alps which push down through rainforest to the coastal plain. They move 2-3 metres a day in the fastest part of the glacier and receive 45 metres of snow a year.
In the afternoon, we walked to Sentinel Rock to get a view of Franz Josef from below, then walked to the glacier face before the weather closed in again. The way the light was hitting the glacier, you could really see the ice was blue.
Chris wanted a go at the iconic photo of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook reflected in Lake Matheson but it wasn’t to be as the cloud was too low, but we saw some great ferns on the way!
Rather than taking a closer look at Fox since the cloud was so low, we pressed on.
Our drive down the west coast came to an end with a final push along the Haast River and over the pass, stopping at some pretty waterfalls and blue pools and staying overnight at Cameron Flat overlooking Mount Brewster.
Tomorrow we will be over the Southern Alps and into Otago.
Off Travelling Together 