So today I had to deal with some travel screw ups. I decided that I was going to pull an Angie, Let me explain, Angie delayed her return to Thailand for a day, giving herself just one day in Thailand so that we could spend an extra day on Gili Meno in Indonesia. Likewise, I realized that I was running out of New Zealand time and was probably going to miss Milford Sound. So today I changed my return to New Zealand to arrive about 10 hours before I depart Thailand for the USA. Rick was not going to be in Thailand when I was returning, and Methet and the kids were leaving a day before I did, so I did not see any reason for me to be back in Thailand. So I contacted Qantas and changed my return to the 21st giving me two extra days in New Zealand which will give me time to get to Fiordland, and to take the not to be missed boat tour of Milford Sound.
We then left Westport, a little too late to catch the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki at high tide. But we had a glorious blue bird day to see the west coast of the South Island, and that was nice. Usually, as I understand it, the west coast is very, very wet as it seems that the weather generally comes in from the west – at least the few times I have seen a radar of New Zealand, the weather was coming from the west, however, a guy at the Hope Saddle rest area, where we camped two nights ago said that the weather rolls off the sea from any direction in New Zealand.
The western slope is rugged and rocky, with beautiful rock outcroppings being pounded by the waves of the Tasman Sea. It was beautiful. We stopped a few times and took some nice pictures (eventually they will be on picasa). We got to the Pancake Rocks in the early afternoon and they were interesting. (again pictures will follow eventually) The tide was still high enough that I got some good movies of the surf spraying out the blowholes in the Rocks (although not like the postcard picture) and making rainbows in the sunshine. It was a small area and the track was a wide asphalt path. There were many tourists here, and so it had a very touristy feel to it. They had a good walking exhibit about some of the plants, including the cabbage tree and New Zealand flax, so that was interesting to read and see the example planted by the track. We finished the tour and picture taking, and did some shopping.
When the stars are out at night, I can’t make out any of the constellations, except for orion, cassiopia, and perseus, (they are all upside down, like the moon). Oh, and I have picked out the southern cross. But today at the DOC gift store at the pancake rocks I bought a star guide for the southern hemisphere. It is under the light now so as to make it glow in the dark as the stars come out later tonight. The constellations are all different so it will be fun to pick out some new ones.
Since it was 2PM, we decided to have lunch there at the café. I noticed an internet kiosk, and thought, I need to check the email (I asked Dan Jones to do some things for me today as I was having trouble with one of my credit cards), and lo and behold an email from my travel agent back home…. Thai has cancelled my flight home and rebooked me on a flight that leaves that evening from Bangkok. That means, I miss my connection to Houston, and also that there are no other flights to Houston that late from LA that I can make. So now I have to spend a night in LA and wait to go to Houston the next day! That means that I will leave New Zealand, travel for 14 hours to Bangkok, wait 22 hours in Bangkok, fly 15 hours to LA, spend the night in LA and then get to Houston the next morning… so its going to take me 4 days to get from New Zealand to Houston?! I rifle off some emails to Lynn and hope that she can work some magic so that I don’t have to spend two nights in two different cities and zig zag across the planet to get back.
Now we are way behind schedule so we race across the west coast to get here to Franz Josef, so that we can make it to Wanaka by tomorrow night to see Nick Frame. On the way we stop in Greymouth (largest city on the west coast, I think, at something like 13,000) to buy some AAA batteries for my digital voice recorder and head lamp, and we walk into a New Zealand version of a Super wal-mart. Now outside it has been warming steadily since we’ve arrived, and it is all pretty spring green and flowering, etc., and we walk into this store and they are playing Frosty the Snowman, and Jingle Bells and things like that. It is just funny to think that it is the holiday season in late spring/early summer, but it is!
The west coast ride is interesting, but from Greymouth to Ross it is the most boring landscape I have seen so far in New Zealand, that is to say, it is gorgeous and green: farms and the large variety of trees and every so often one of the numerous short, wide, crystal clear rivers that New Zealand has, but it is not as vertical as the rest of New Zealand. Every now and then a fantastic view of the Southern Alps opens up on the eastern side, but they are in the far distance, which means like the view of the Rockies from Aurora on a clear day (not very far at all)….still beautiful, but relatively boring.
Now at this point in the trip I am lying down in the back of the vanette. That is one of the beautiful things about the vanette, when my back bothers me, I can lie down in the back while Gen drives. Now the roads in New Zealand are one of the least attractive features of the country. For one they twist and turn a lot. And today that is not bothering me at all. What is killing me are the numerous compressions. The landscape is rather volatile as this is an island of mountains formed by two tectonic plates colliding as the chap at the Nelson Lakes hike explained, so the landscape is moving, and the roads are not in the best of shape. We seem to be hitting a compression about once every 300 meters or so, and it is taking its toll.
And I thought there wasn’t much to put in the blog tonight.
Then we come across something uniquely New Zealand…something you would never, ever find in the states….A one lane bridge (I’ve told you about them), but this one is also a railway bridge! So the main west coast highway becomes a one lane bridge with a train track going right down the middle of it! In front of us now, a big tour bus is on the train track waiting for the traffic coming across the bridge to clear the bridge before it and we go across this bridge. (I took pictures!)
But then the landscape changes back to New Zealand verticality, the road comes closer to the Southern Alps, and I am mister shutterbug in the car again. We don’t stop too much, because we need to get to Franz Josef tonight, and I want to get there so I can get out of the car, eat, get the blog done and get some sleep tonight!
Passing Ross we return to the steep green room of a typical New Zealand landscape – moss and ferns and huge trees covered in green drapery, steep slopes that get so much moisture that they are also covered in green. By Whaitaha it is very, very beautiful. We then pass through Harihari, which looks like a really cool little hamlet. It has a lot of flat (for New Zealand not nearly as wide as South Park or the San Luis valley– not by a long shot!), and of course it is all super green. The Southern Alps are right there, and the mountains in front of the Southern Alps are steep and covered in rain forest type vegetation – it reminds me of Hawaii, just colder.
Tonight we are staying in Franz Josef under a tall snow covered mountain on the western side of the Southern Alps near the Franz Josef glacier. This is a newer, very nice camper van park that was recently hewn out of the rainforest. It is nice, peaceful, and thankfully dry. Not many amenities – no kitchen and no internet/tv lounge, but that is ok. It beats the hell out of the crowded and rather grim Holiday Park Camping area in Westport. That had a communal kitchen with rows of two burner electric cooktops, but I had to try three to find one that worked. It had a tv room/internet kiosk room, but only lit by this one low wattage light bulb, so that I wore my headlamp as I composed last night’s blog. Here on the other hand, we have power at our site and I am standing outside the van (better than sitting in the awful chairs of the place last night, which is what crippled me today) typing away on Genevieve’s computer listening to the pleasant, but somewhat muted (compared to the northern part of the Island) birdsong in the fading twilight. We also have a lamp that puts out a good amount of light, so this is working fine. (The lesson is to not stop at campervan parks that do not rate any stars in Jason's Guide book. An invaluable and free publication available all over the South Island.)
Genevieve likes Westport, a town of about 4500 in the northern West coast of New Zealand which has an area population of 6,000. Westport is a little grim, but also has some charm. It is a coal mining town that has some counter-cultural types moving in and making it an interesting smorgasborg. Sound familiar? (Crested Butte). No wonder Genevieve likes it.
Westport is basically on the far side of Kahurangi Park and it took us a few day to get around to it from Nelson (with hikes, of course, but that gives you an idea of the size.) Kahurangi National Park covers 452,000 hectares (1,116,916 acres!) and is the second largest of New Zealand’s 14 national parks. It covers most of the northwest corner of the south island. I really liked that park, and definitely want to spend some time exploring it when I come back to New Zealand. It seems to have a lot of variety in landscapes and is home of the famous Heaphy Track – a four/five day walk.
I also thought I would put in some general observations about New Zealand tonight, like how great the apples are. Good new Zealand Macintosh and fiji apples. Also, there are lots of deer being raised on some of the farms, Gen tells me that when you order Elk or Deer in a restaurant in the US what you are really eating is New Zealand Red Deer – a cross between an Elk and a Deer. Also the walking/bike paths that occur occationally along the side of the road, are not str8. They are usually very curvey, and not because the road is curvey, it seems that it is just for aesthetics.
Anyway, that is tonight’s blog. Tune in next time for the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers and the trip over Haast Pass to Wanaka.
Until then, Newo out
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