FOX and FRANZ JOSEPH GLACIER NEW PIX!

Fox Glacier





Day 345

Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph Glacier South Island, NZ

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We've done over 4000 km's and stayed at 11 campsites in the time we've been in NZ!
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You might be wondering if we got a cabin last night?

Nope.

They were all booked out! So we camped in our tent - again!

And we almost got drowned again...but once again, i didn't hear a thing. Once i hit the pillow, that's it for me. Greg slept pretty soundly too.

Today we booked into the Fox Glacier Ice Walk!

We left at 9.30am for the trek. First, we all gathered at the Fox Glacier office int he town, then we went on a bus to the bottom of the glacier. And going on the trek and the ice was just incredible. Very different to our experience in El Calafate but no less spectacular.

At the Ice Trekking place here in Fox Glacier they really prepare you well. We were supplied with socks, boots, wet weather gear including rain jacket, rain pants and ice poles. The boots were a bit of a challenge...knowing we were going on a 3km trek i had to put my orthodics inside the boots they supplied! But they were ok, apart from wearing out some of my heel, due to the slipping during the trek!

We were wondering how cold it was going to be!!!

But it wasn't cold at all. If anything, it was quite warm. The 3km trek upward to the point where we were to step on the glacier was hard work! The glacier had receded so much that the walk to actually get on the ice was quite long.

There was a point as we drove into Fox Glacier where it said the glacier stopped at in 1770 and that was 18km's from where it is now. It's receded so much. But it has actually been advancing since 1985 so it's not as bad.

That was the major difference between Fox Glacier and Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia (Argentina, South America). The latter is a stable glacier where it advances up to 2 metres every day...and the face of it calves ice daily, crashing thousands of tonnes into the water every day. Fox GLacier doesn't do this..so it doesn't make such a great impact on the senses and there are fewer ahs' and oohs when you see it.

It looks dirty. Because there is so much debris coming off the mountains it mixes with the glacial ice and dirties it.














But we loved our trek. We put mini crampons (not the elaborate ice crampons we had in El Calafate) and trekked around the ice, inside and out of crevices and pools for about an hour.














There were guys that had been up there in the morning calving ice steps in the ice for us to walk on..so we were a bit spoilt to say the least.

The trek downwards was a lot more fun than upwards i can tell you. Out of the 13 in our group, only 11 of us went on the ice, 2 people pulled out when they were told they had to hang onto chains to prevent them falling off the steep mountain side. I felt a bit sad they didn't complete it. Personally, i think the guide uses scare tactics, but maybe they have to, to work out who will complete the trek before we got onto the ice. Not sure. Just a shame they pulled out.

We got to look down crevices..and see the incredible blue holes...














We got back from our trek about 2pm and got out of all our wet gear (yes, it rained on the ice) and headed off to the Franz Joseph Glacier (Westland Tai Poutini National Park) which was about 28km from Fox Glacier.

Franz Joseph Glacier had some good walks, which we went on. One called Sentinel Rock Walk took us onto a high view of the glacier but this glacier was receding at a high rate. It's been receding for the most of the last century, apart from a period from about 1983 - 2000. And it was so far in the distance we really couldn't see much.

We went on another walk to Peter's Pool which had gorgeous views.

Pics of Fraz Joseph Glacier..
















And by the time we finished all our walks and treks, we were HUNGRY!!!!!

We stopped at a supermarket, stocked up on some supplies..and headed to Westpoint, where we are now!!!

And............we're in a CABIN tonight....YAY~!

We really didn't feel like braving the weather and packing up a soaking wet tent in our packs for our trip back on the ferry tomorrow!!!

So...yup, tonight is our last night in South Island...and we've had a ball! It's been exhausting but it's been great.

Camping IS Fun!

By the way, we've been examining the camper vans people are travelling in..and we're not sure if that is the way to go! It's very expensive..costing at 3 times as much as what we're currently paying for car hire and tent sites.














A lot of them have been pitching a little dome tent like ours anyway! To put their stuff in so they can sleep! A lot of the camper vans have the set up where you can sleep in your bed..OR...eat at your table. And storage looks limited. Of course this is just the camper people hire. Other set ups look better.

We were thinking..when we come back..CABINS might be the way to go! Tonights cabin cost us $55 for the night. Most tent sites are about $30+ for the night.

OKies...got to go to bed..this sea and mountain air is sending me to sleep!

See you in Wellington!!

Gosh we get about AYE!

NOw..it's night nights from me!! xxxx

TE ANAU and QUEENSTOWN

Gondola in Queenstown









Day 344

Te Anau South Island, NZ

Camping again in Te Anau.

Te Anau is SO pretty! We were glad to end up in this gorgeous little town. The township of Te Anau is just two hours from Queenstown.

The woman at the Holiday Park in Te Anue got our name completly wrong :-) The "e" ended up an "i" and our name came out looking so funny.

The kiwi's really do have a strange way of pronouncing things!!!!! (in our aussie books anyway!) All the vowels are swallowed. When you think of how young the country is, the evolvement of the language is very recent.

We have a similar historical background, and yet both the aussies and the kiwi's have a unique individual pronouncement of the same language. I was reading a whole article about this (language and linguistics) in the paper today, which was interesting. But i guess it's the same with the british (Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English) as well. Language is so fascintating!

The spot we chose for our tent was near a lot of other tents that were up in the camping ground. We got friendly with the guy next door and had quite a few discussions about weather! It was raining when we pitched the tent..and it rained all night!!! (I didn't hear it!!! It was pelting down apparently..and i was still oblivious!) Ignorance is bliss, as they say! Poor Greg ended up, up half the night thinking the tent was going to fly away..or get drenched..but we survived!

I love our blow up mattress...

But the camping side of it...is getting a little.....OLD?

We spent the day in Queenstown after our night in Te Anau..

And Queenstown should definitely be awarded the spot on the Monopoly Board.

SO..SO..beautiful!

We went on a gondola and had the most incredible view of the whole town...gorgeous.

While we were up the top, we also had FUSH and CHUPS. Which were very yummy...

We were going to go on the luge and paragliding...

But it was raining...hehe

(Phew!)

We headed out of Queenstown, past all the large poplar trees, the one way bridges oceans and trees and a whole lot more wineries to Fiordland...

Entering South Westland World Heritage area was special....we felt we were in another world...

The name of the town was Fox Glacier.

But, where to stay?

We decided to book into a cabin for the night. It was still raining.

But..........

Would we find a cabin in this popular town that had 'no vacancies' on every motel?

MILFORD SOUND

Cruising in Milford Sound






Day 343

Milford Sound, (in Maori Piopiotahi) South Island, NZ

Gosh. We've been so lucky with the weather!!!

Last night i bought the paper and the weather forecast was rain.

But no rain fell. We had the most beautiful day in Milford Sound. And the "wee" cruise we took was empty. Probably only about 20 of us on the ferry! They must have thought it was going to rain!!!!

Lucky us "aye"! :-)

We left "Wolf Creek Caravan Park" (our name only) early so we could drive the 300 or so km's to Milford Sound and get on our pre-booked cruise at 3pm. What a drive. So scenic, yet so long!

I think i'm over these long drives.......................

And Greg's plan to see NZ in 18 days!

My whingeing stopped when i looked, in awe, at the cyclists powering their way around NZ, loaded with luggage! And the 'trampers' on the roads. NZ is definitely THE place for the great outdoors! People are travelling the winding, hilly, roads in all sorts of ways...touring, camping, tramping, cycling, walking, driving...in all modes of transport possible!

We arrived with about half an hour to spare so we just cruised around before we had to board the boat. Greg swatted a few mossies and i looked around for post cards to add to our collection.

We boarded the "Milford Monarch" to cruise the fiords. And what a beautiful day. The weather was perfect. Who said it rains in NZ?

We cruised the sheer cliff faces plunging into the fiords, saw the flowing waterfalls, admired the high mountains, boats and kayakers that were dotted about. It reminded us of the time we cruised through the beautiful fjords of Norway.

Gosh, the world really does have some magnificant places!!

And they are all so different. There are comparisons..but all have their own special magic. Some of the walking treks here are just awesome. There were backpackers and boots everywhere.

We were actually thinking we were glad we weren't going to be going trekking. After our 15km hike yesterday, we wanted to have more of a rest today. Even though it was hard because we did peer into a walking area..and decided to go for a walk. The forest is just so irresistible. We had to go and 'be in it'! But it was only a small walk this time.

After our cruise, which we wanted to go on forever....

We drove on to Te Anau for the night.

And pitched our tent in the rain!

It DOES rain in NZ!!!!!!!!

STEWART ISLAND-THE ANCHOR of NZ!

Patersons Inlet on Stewart Island


Day 342

Stewart Island, (And Ulva Island)
Invercargill, South Island, New Zealand

We drove out of the Holiday Park to Bluff, which is where the ferry took off to Stewart Island. We got there early because a few people at the park said we needed to book early to get on the ferry, which is always full.

We were really lucky! We got tickets over and back on the same day. All for $220 which we thought was a very high price. That's one thing we've really found here in NZ, all tourist activities are expensive!

But worth it.

We packed our jersey's and togs and hopped on the superduper ferry, that had superduper echosounders all the passengers could also see on a big screen....(I thought of Sam and the echo sounder he came to NZ especially to buy just before we left!~)

Stewart Island looked special in the brochures and we both really love going to different Islands. This one looked really special. We were told of the Maori analogy where North Island represented the people, South Island the canoe and Stewart Island, the third biggest Island in NZ was the anchor.

We had to go to the anchor! :-)

Before we left we booked a trip to Ulva Island, in the Patterson Inlet, which is a island that is a Marine Reserve and birdlife sanctury that had rare bird life inhabiting the island, just off Stewart Island that we wanted to see.

The ferry, "Stewart Island Experience" left at 9.30am. We were due back at 6.30pm.

We flew over at 24 to 25 knots and the view of the other islands was quite spectacular. A few people got seasick on the way over. In fact, Canopy Car Girl was on the same ferry for us and she was one of the poor souls that we saw turn green at the back of the boat. Aw. It was pretty rough though. And wet.

By the time we arrived the rain had cleared up and we were lucky to be able to have the whole day in sunshine. Seems when it rains it only does for a minute then stops. People were saying they had had weeks of beautiful rain free weather though. Which we were glad off!

Stewart Island, called Rakiura in Maori, is my dream island. I want to live there!! It's just GORGEOUS!!!

A few of the people on the boat hired cars and scooters but we decided to walk the island. It's about 27km's around...and we didn't get around it..but we did go to the Lookout and saw all around..so beautiful.





Acker’s house







We also walked up to Akers Point and Harold Bay which both have stories attached to their names. Akers was a guy who built a stone house for himself and his maori wife and 9 children but who was evicted because he failed to make a claim for the land when land claims came in, in the early 1800/s. Seemed sad. But i guess that's why the story made an impact.

At 1pm we took off to Ulva Island and once we were there we were led around the island by a guide who had so much knowledge about birds and the island itself. It was so interesting. We've really taken to learning about local birds and wildlife that's for sure. I think in my next life i want to be a botanist!!!!

Apparently the rats were erradicated from Stewart Is and Ulva Is in 2000 so we learnt all about how they did that..and about the effect of the rat's erradication as well. Some species of trees are surviving..and the animal life has changed as well. So interesting!

We left Ulva Island at 3.30pm to head back to Stewart Island (saw cormarents in caves on the way back!) and once back, about 4.30pm, we had another 3 hours to kill, so we went for another walk!

In all, we walked about 15km's around the island.

Thank goodness we were going back to our 'weird campsite' that night instead of having to set up a new 'home'!!!

"Canopy Car Girl" was back in the spot next to our tent as well......

We're getting to be quite a family!

haha!

The guy at reception was there when we arrived back as well....he said he knew we were there...and he was a friendly guy. He said he'd book a cruise in the morning, in Milford Sound tomorrow which was nice of him.

He also told us they had found red back spiders in Marlborough (The area around here) and people were not very impressed with Australians at the moment!! Ohh dear.

We met a few people in the kitchen when we were preparing our meal tonight..a couple of Israelies and a few of the 'locals'. Kiwi's really are very friendly people.

DUNEDIN TO WEIRD PARK IN INVERCARGILL!

Dunedin Train Station!






Day 341 Continued...

We ended up in Invercargill!!!!

We did get to have a look around Dunedin after we left the little internet place on the main street though....we went to the Library to visit the Little Room.....(it's hard when you're travelling to find these places i can tell you!) and to the railway Station to see the incredible looking building there (above!) and to the wharf which was also gorgeous.

Unlike Christchurch, which was very English, with it's english sounding streets, Dunedin was very Scottish! It's funny to see some towns in NZ have such British influence which, like Australia, is of course due to it's background!
Most street names in the towns we've been in however, have a lot of Maori names.

On the way to Invercargill, which was our goal for today, Thursday, we finally saw a lot of SHEEP!!! Just when we were asking ourselves where all the sheep were..they were everywhere!! In all the paddocks!!!! So funny....

They are so white and fluffy too..but that could be because the grass is very green and the contrast is so obvious!

We finally arrived in Invercargill at 9.30pm after the whole day driving and as we entered the town we saw a tourist point that had a couple of Holiday Park advertisements with directions outlined on a billboard. We thought the Beach Road Holiday Park sounded good because it was close to Bluff where we wanted to go in the morning to catch a ferry to Stewart Island.

As we entered this Holiday Park we were a bit taken aback. The lighting was a bit dubious...and when we stopped at the reception, it was closed! There was a note staying tenters or campers could set up for the night and pay in the morning. So that's what we did!

We drove in and the whole place looked really permanent. And a bit Wolf Creekish! Eerie in a way. We didn't want to change parks tho, because it was late.

We found a spot next to an old car that was parked to the side with a big yellow canopy enveloping it. Behind a few trees there were two more tents but we decided to camp next to the deserted car.

We pitched our tent..and checked the kitchen and ablutions out. We met a guy there, Bill, who told us all about The Park. He said there were fifty permanents there!! We thought as much, it didn't seem the 'normal' Holidaiy Park at all. The kitchen had cultlery and crokery and fridges and things everywhere. It was modern though and looked like it had been refurbished. We found out it had been done up about a year ago. The laundry had washing machines and dryers but only one of each worked.

The Park was only 1km from the beach, so it did have it's advantages but it just seemed so ramshakle. The showers needed upgrading - showering with the spiders and centipedes was not fun and the grounds were overgrown and in need up updating.

And to be honest, Bill LOOKED like the guy from Wolf Creek. We ended up going into the town to get some fuel ($1.70 L) and messaged Mum to let her know where we were!! (Just to let her know where we were..'in case'..as there was no reception at the camping ground!)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Weird thing was..as we were sleeping, we heard movement in the car next door. You know, the deserted car.

It turned out to be a girl sleeping in there. At breakfast she told us she was travelling around NZ in her car and she used the canopy for privacy. Just shows you impressions aren't always what they seem..We thought a homeless person or someone had jumped into the car overnight! (Which is what they did in abandoned cars in South America). Are we getting cynical?

The next morning we drove out of the park, still no one at reception, and headed for Bluff to get our tickets for Stewart Island.

We did contemplate packing up and leaving but we wanted to go to Stewart Island for the day..and then stay in Invercargill that night so it seemed pointless to pack up and put the tent up again at some other park when we'd already gotten it all set up.

Hopefully someone would be at reception when we arrived back at night.....