West Coast & Glaciers

Craig:

The west coast of New Zealand is very different from the east coast.  The east coast has plains and rolling hills filled with sheep and dairy cattle whereas the west has lush, green, forested mountains with dramatic views of the Southern Alps.  We, however, did not get to see the dramatic views of the Southern Alps due to a nice three day long “Southwester” that strolled through New Zealand.  It was rainy and cloudy for much our west coast time but we still managed to see some cool stuff.  One thing that a few clouds in the sky does promote is cool sunsets.  We managed to be stuck in a town called Haast (the road north was closed due to flooding) and ventured out to the beach around sunset.  These pictures were the result of our beach time. 

After a good night sleep in an unplanned holiday park, we headed north in hopes that the road would be open and it was.  The Southern Alps are filled with glaciers.  We saw of few of them while we were in Mt. Cook National Park and now we were going to see the ones that lay on the other side of the mountain.  Our first stop was Fox Glacier.  We could not hike all the way up to the base of the glacier because all the rain had washed out the track so we had to settle for a cloudy, distant view. 

The next glacier north is Franz Joseph Glacier which was much more accessible.  A few stream crossings, a couple waterfalls, and 45 minutes will get you right up to the base of the glacier.  There were still some low hanging clouds in the valley so we could only probably see half of the entire glacier but it was massive.  Here are some pictures of the hike up to it and the glacier itself.

We continued to head north and camped that night in hopes that it would clear in the morning.  There was a lake close by that if clear and calm, had excellent reflections of Mt. Cook in it but we once again awoke to clouds and rain so we got back on the road.  We did come across this interesting sight. 

These cairns were lined up down the beach for about an entire mile.  There were hundreds of them. Very cool for someone who like cairns as much as I do.

Next stop: Pancake Rocks