This was yet another beautiful drive on the South Island through the mountains with white fluffy clouds wrapping around the peaks. The super narrow, curvy roads and hairpin turns were tough to negotiate, as well as the double trailer trucks literally flying by us through the mountains. How can they go so fast?! I assumed they were gas trucks, since they looked like the tanker gas trucks we have in the States, but a closer look revealed that they were milk trucks! Haha I understood why when we emerged on the other side of the mountains into fields of cows. Heaps and heaps of cows!
There are two popular glaciers on the West Coast, Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier. These townships are about 20 km apart, and both areas have several scenic hikes and offer glacier walking tours and helicopter rides (which we opted out of due to the insane price and the fact that we were only spending a day total for both glaciers. I'll just put it in the bank of what I want to do if I return to NZ).
Today, New Zealand has 3000 glaciers (betcha didn't know that), but it's been predicted that in 50 years, half of these glaciers will be gone! This fast melting rate is unprecedented, as it usually takes hundreds of thousands of years for a glacier to melt. I was sad over this news, as both NZ and Australia are greatly affected by the hole in the ozone layer.
Both the Fox and Fran Josef Glaciers are the closest glaciers to the ocean in the world. In this area, there is a strange juxtaposition with rainforest and glacier, as you are literally hiking through the forest and then come face to face with a massive block of hundreds of thousands of years of packed ice that has been carving out the mountain side for just as long.
While these glaciers are the second and third largest in NZ (with the largest being Tasman Glacier on Mount Cook), both used to be MASSIVE in the 1750s. There are pictures at the visitor centers of explorers posing with the glaciers that completely fill the now empty valleys (the glaciers have been retreating since the photos were taken). The majority of the hike to the mouth of the Franz Josef Glacier is through a desolate gray valley that was carved out by the glacier. The mountains surrounding the valley have distinctive horizontal lines in them that show how high the glacier used to reach. It was so interesting! If we had been hiking in the 1700s, this valley would not have existed. Instead, we would have been standing 100 km higher on top of the ice!
The hike to the Fox Glacier lookout was super adventurous. The hike started with a sign that read "Warning: Recent rainfall can make some rivers and stream impassable." Foreshadowing? You've got that right! Kearse and I both smirked at the sign and pressed on through the forest, hopping over streams that seemed to be at a completely normal level... Until we got to this huge rushing river.
We looked saw the marker for the trail on the other side of the river, but no apparent crossing or bridge. Just piles and piles of large boulders on both sides of the angrily rushing, milky white glacier water. Due to the color of the water, there was no way to tell how deep the river was, or where the rocks were that lied underneath. So, fording the river was out of the question, especially after throwing a boulder into the river and listening to it bang down the river bed as the ferocious water swept it away. That would pretty much be the sound of your head and body being dragged across the rocks if you fell in the river. We needed to find a place to hop, jump, or leap over the river if we ever wanted to set eyes on Fox Glacier.
Kearse and I, along with four other hikers, spent over an hour searching up the river for a suitable place to cross. There were none. Two of the hikers found a decent spot, and we all worked together to jump over the 4 to 5 feet of rushing water onto the unstable rocks on the other side, throwing our backpacks over first before leaping across. My biggest worry was how we were going to find a way back across, especially since one of the hikers pointed out that we had no idea whether the water in the river was rising or falling. When I raised the question of the return trip, they laughed and brushed it off. Haha oh well, onward we go.
We hiked back down the river to find the trail marker, crossed a dry river bed, and then walked only about 5 more minutes to reach the lookout of the Fox Glacier. It was a stunning sight- bright blue ice squeezed into the crevasse of the mountain, with sunlight gleaming on the ice surface and deep green rainforest trees surrounding its edges. What a sight to see!
On the return trip, I realized that the reason there was no bridge over the river was because the river is so turbulent and unpredictable. The dry river bed we were crossing before getting to the actual river could easily have been filled with water yesterday, and who knows how high the levels were! This realization made this hike a truly unique experience. We crossed back over the river at the same point as before, but the jump was more difficult since the landing was onto a slick and angled rock. By the time we got back over the river, the crossing was gone, as the rocks we had used as a launching pad had disappeared into the water. Who knows how the other hikers we passed on our way down the mountain made it across the river...
After our glacier experiences, we drove along the West Coast to spend the night in the town of Greymouth. It was hilarious to see the permanently windblown trees along the ocean. It looked like there was a hurricane when there was really no wind at all! All of the trees were leaning in the same direction away from the ocean with all of their branches growing out of one side of the trunk.
The next morning we blasted through the country to catch the 2:00 ferry out of Picton to Wellington in the North Island. The South Island scenery did not disappoint, as we drove up on top of the bluffs and saw cliffs dropping straight down into the ocean and rock islands just off shore being pounded by massive waves. The long stretches of beaches coated in the misty pink of the early morning sunrise made for a picturesque trip up the coast. Fun fact: There are 14 National Parks in New Zealand, protecting 11.5% of New Zealand's total land area!
We made a stop at the Pancake Rocks and blow holes, some fascinating rock formations along the bluffs that the waves are continuing to carve out. The wave surges in between the rock formations were really exciting to watch and hear! I also spotted a penguin crossing sign, which was hilarious even though we didn't get to see any actual penguins.
To get to Picton, we had to drive straight back across the island to the East Coast, so it was neat to see the change in scenery again from the lush, green mountains in the west to the rounded, dry brown hills in the east. We even drove by our first rivers and lakes with clear water, not milky glacier water. These views looked more like the Appalachians in the US than the Southern Alps of New Zealand. During the drive, I enjoyed pointing out numerous road signs, like "Winding road for the next 10 km" as if NZ had given up posting the winding road sign. Other favorite signs were quite dark in tone, like "Drink, Drive, Die" and "It's a Road, Not a Race" and "Don't Ruin Someone Else's Holiday" and "Sleepy Drivers Die". I also enjoyed the funny names of various little creeks and rivers along the road, like Little Deep Creek, Big Deep Creek, Crouch Creek, Dizzy Creek, New Creek, New Creek 2, etc.
Then we blasted through Marlborough wine country, famous for one particular type of grape- the sauvignon blanc. This region is located in a warm and dry plain that is perfect for this type if grape. Marlborough not only offers NZ's finest white wine variety, but it is also regarded as the world's best. However, there was no stopping here as we were trying to catch the ferry, but it certainly was a dry place with the only green being the long lines of vineyards.
We made it to Picton by the skin of our teeth and drove onto the Interislander Ferry. The ferry across Cook Strait between NZ's north and south islands is considered one of the world's most beautiful ferry rides. The 92 kilometer crossing takes three hours, and the clear weather that day offered us some awesome views of the Queen Charlotte sound and Wellington harbor.
In Wellington, we drove up a huge hill to Victoria University and met up with GT Professor and good friend, Dr. Barke, who is one of the professors on Tech's Pacific Study Abroad Program. This hill puts Tech's Freshman Hill to shame. We joined Dr. Barke and some of the Tech students for dinner, including good friends of Annie and Caroline, who have been having a blast living, studying, and traveling in New Zealand! They all offered awesome recommendations for Kearse and I to do in the North Island. It was so great to see some familiar faces so far away from home :)
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