After the long day of driving south I ended up in Otira, right on the edge of Arthur's Pass. In the 1800s some European settler decided to find the pass through the mountains that the Maori took, and then it became called Arthur's Pass. Honestly I was expecting something more like I-70 through Colorado, and besides one steep section, it is actually fairly flat.
I started out the morning getting ready to hike Avalanche Peak. You can either do it as a loop or an out and back. Well, I started out and began to question my ability to do this trail a couple hundred meters in. It was steep. It was well marked and obvious. However it is not a trail that is cleared out in any way really. You're ducking under tree branches as you climb up steep sections. At one point I was looking at a section and I'm like, "that tree up there with the marker is probably about 10 feet above my head and from where I'm at that is maybe 10-15 feet horizontal, meaning we're looking at roughly a 45 degree slope, maybe slightly less. It was after I had to scramble up a section of rocks and realized I would have to be coming back down that sort of thing in 6 hours, when I was tired, that I said it isn't worth it. I called this slope a Colorado Double-Black Diamond ski slope, whereas the hardest trail I've done in Colorado would be more like a Minnesota Double-Black Diamond or maybe a Colorado Blue Square (yes those two are pretty comparable from my experience). So anyways, I turned around and came back down.
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| I know this really just looks like a bunch of roots, but this was the Avalanche Peak trail that I attempted. It was a little ways past here that I decided NOPE! This area, the tree at the top of the picture with the orange marker is about 10 feet over my head and just maybe 10-15 feet from where I'm standing. |
After getting back down, I ditched some of my clothes because i was hot and then headed to the Devil's Punchbowl. Yes, that was seriously the name of the waterfall that I was heading to! They said originally the pool at the bottom of the falls was called the Devil's Punchbowl, but eventually that name came to refer to the falls as well. To get to the bottom of the falls you had to hike up a bunch of stairs. At least these were cleared out and well built stairs, so much different from what I had been experiencing on the Avalanche Peak trail. The falls are 130m tall and quite the sight. I couldn't get any great pictures of them from up close because of all the spray coming off them. Ironically, my best pictures of them come from across the valley when I was on the Avalanche Peak trail.
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| Devil's Punchbowl |
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| Devil's Punchbowl as viewed from the Avalanche Peak Trail. I got better on my camera, but it is much harder putting those photos in, so phone photo is what you get. |
After reaching the bottom, I decided it was scenic drive time, so I went through the pass opposite from which I came and just drove for like an hour, stopping off and on when I saw places that I needed to stop for photos. I drove through a section that had obviously had a fire sweep through within the past few years (note: I went and looked it up, it was literally a year ago that mountainside was on fire), but it didn't kill all of the trees.
I pulled in at Cave Stream Scenic Reserve for lunch and to turn around. I sat in the back of my Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross and admired the view, while eating a peanut butter sandwich. At this place there is literally a stream that goes through a cave that you can wander through from one end to the other. In fact, as I was heading to just hike the area, not go through the cave, two parents and their maybe 5 year old came out in wetsuits. I wandered the trails and then went down the slope to near the exit to the cave. I wasn't up for getting my boots wet or taking them off so I stayed on one side of the stream. The water coming out of the cave was fairly acidic according to the signs which is how come it has left a yellowish-orange tinge on the rocks it passes over. But just downstream from the cave it meets up with a clear mountain stream and soon it all blends in.
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| Acidic cave stream meets fresh mountain stream. |
After turning around I headed back for Arthur's Pass. There I stopped for food and saw my first Kea. Kea are the only alpine parrot and only found in New Zealand. They're about the size of a macaw, so quite large. The signs up in the area say they're extremely smart. That they have been seen using tools and they even been seen setting off stoat traps so they BANG! because they seem to get a kick out of it. Not kea related really, but I learned that here in New Zealand when you see "Chicken Burger", it basically means a chicken patty. And it is tangentially kea-related because I got a chicken burger at a restaurant called The Alpine Parrot.
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| Kea |
In the morning after packing up, I set off again for sites further south. My first stop was Hokitika. It hadn't really been on my list, but I saw a picture of it the night before and though, "why not? I have time." If I had to give Hokitika a nickname, it would be "Driftwood Capital of the World". There is so much driftwood on the beaches there. The surf was coming in pretty hard too, which is probably why it shows a surfboard on my map. I assume that surf is related to the apparent sandbar that has been stranding ships for centuries. In 1865 alone, 21 ships floundered on the sandbars of Hokitika. And for much of the late 1800s they were averaging about 1 ship every 10 weeks. The sandbar shifts and can range from about 2m to 14m below the waterline.
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| Hokitika |
From Hokitika I headed up to Hokitika River Gorge. This gorge was gorgeous! I've been waiting to use that phrase! The Hokitika River apparently is a glacial river, which means it has that milky turquoise blue color to it. Fantastic photos and definitely worth the 30 minute drive in each direction.
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| Hokitika Gorge |
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| Hokitika Gorge |
After Hokitika Gorge, I continued south to the Pakihi Lookout. I'm sort of in a weird holding pattern as I have an overnight cruise coming up, and so I can't go south too fast or I get there too early. So I took advantage of that time and spent an 45 minutes watching some mountains, hoping the clouds would clear out from around them so I could see them better. They kind of cleared some, but not enough to really see them.
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| Almost there. |
Pakihi Lookout was only about 20 minutes from my final destination for the night, Franz Josef, site of Franz Josef Glacier. I found it kind of weird that there is a place in New Zealand named for a former Austrian emperor. Anyways, I woke up in the morning and the sky was clear! So I hauled myself out of bed because I knew the forecast had clouds and rain moving in after lunch and I wanted to see things while I could.
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| Franz Josef Glacier...as recently as 2010, the glacier reached the mountain leg on the left side. |
First up was the Franz Josef Glacier. Unfortunately, like almost every glacier out there, it is in a full retreat. As they tend to do at glacier overlooks, they had comparison photos from years past, with the oldest being maybe 1900 and the most recent 2010. The difference between 2010 and now is astounding and sad. I learned that Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier are two of just a few glaciers in the world that empty out into a rainforest. The west coast of New Zealand receives insane amounts of rain. The rainiest place on the island was just a couple of kilometers from Hokitika Gorge, and gets an average of 12 meters of rain a year! YES, I SAID 12 METERS! I took the trail up as far as I could to see ol' Franz Josef, which really wasn't far enough to see much. Part of the trail that went further was washed out a few years ago and so you can't go around the bend at all.
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| Views from the drive (I didn't take this while driving because I'm not dumb. There are plenty of pullouts). |
After saying auf Wiedersehen to Franz Josef Glacier, I hopped in my car to head to see the Fox Glacier. That was originally on the itinerary for tomorrow, but Franz Josef didn't take much time and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so instead I went today. The two mile trail up to the Fox Glacier viewing points was a bit further than the walk to Franz Josef and I took and offshoot on what was called the Moraine Trail through the forest for a bit. They had some markers up in that section labeled 1600 and 1750, with those being the years the glacier was at that point. Since 1600 pre-dates European colonization, they base that date off of the plants found in the area and their size. They expect certain plants to be found in moraines that are 25 years old and 50 years old and 100 years old and so forth. As time goes on, certain plants like podocarp-type trees (new vocab word!), aka pine trees, are finally going to show up, but they're some of the last.
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| Fox Glacier, with your friendly reminder that New Zealand does have rainforests! |
After viewing the two glaciers I headed back to Franz Josef Town for an afternoon off. Books, a nice long shower, mourning the loss of Matt Campbell as ISU football coach. From here I head back into Lord of the Rings territory. Lots of stuff was filmed in the Wanaka and Queenstown areas. It has now been 2 weeks and 2 days since I left home!
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