From Kaikoura – >Christchurch –> Arthurs Pass –> Greymouth –> Franz Josef Glacier –> Haast –> Wanaka.

Well from the imaginative title above you can gather that a lot of travelling has gone on since my last posting. Arriving in Wanaka today about 1pm to glorious un-adulterated sunshine and 28 degree heat it made such a difference to the suffering we’ve gone through the last two days. But I’ll go back a bit further first. Leaving Kaikoura after getting to do some Dolphin watching but unfortunately no whale watching, we set off across the near middle of the south island on Highway 73, through Arthur’s Pass. This was a long drive and mountainous roads with steep twists and turns along the way made it nerve racking enough. IT had some fantastic scenery along the way though and indeed the trip went a lot faster than we had thought it would. We had planned to stop more than ¾’s of the way across the country in a small “town” called Jackson’s. Well I call it a town, a holiday park and a tavern and that’s it. Not to belittle the place though as this park, remote as it was had fantastic facilities and a very helpful and informative host who put us onto a local walking track which we completed later that day.

They had a courtesy van which dropped us down the road to the tavern where we had a very good (read: expensive) dinner but was well worth it. Jackson’s Retreat was the name of the place and indeed it had some of the best toilets/ showers we have come across yet. These things tend to become important as time goes on without your own loo to call upon. Depending on public toilets is not great so when you find a holiday park with good clean bathroom’s it’s a huge plus.

The following morning we headed out to finish the west bound journey and arrive at Greymouth town. We got there pretty early in the morning, the first day back from the Christmas break for most trader’s so the town was pretty quiet until about 11am when everything seemed to get back into the swing of things. The town itself is the biggest on the West Coast, comprising about 13’000 people or thereabouts. We were only staying one night so during the day of our arriving, we headed north to Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks. Touristy and busy but worth the excursion as there’s not a whole lot to do in Greymouth central really. It’s pretty much a seaside town of not too much substance.

We stayed that night at the less than agreeable Greymouth Top 10 park, located beside the sea and next door to a graveyard, not a small one either, plenty of deceased folk to keep you company.

Still it did give some nice photos that evening at sunset so it made up for it a small bit.

In the morning we pushed on towards Franz Josef Glacier. We were planning on staying here for two nights at the fantastically named rainforest resort holiday park. Fantastic though, it was not. We arrived to Franz Josef, bright eyed and full of enthusiasm for all the touristy entrapments that were to offer. I immediately booked a ½ day hike up the glacier for the next morning and had although the weather was rough we hoped it might clear up. It did not.

A slight aside, the West Coast of the South Island has a lot of rain; I’ll repeat that, a LOT. More than London, Los Angles, Ireland! There’s a statistic somewhere in my brain for the actual amount but I can’t find it. So a lot of rain left us with a damp van, misty winds and a bleak outlook of the town. It rained (a misty rain interspersed with heavy downpours) for a solid 36 hours. I cancelled the ½ day hike the morning we were due to do it, with much argument on my behalf as they have a strict “No cancellations” policy…psssh yeah right.

I also booked a helicopter flight around Mt. Cook and above the glaciers for the following morning as well so we held out the second night in the town on the hope that it might clear up for us a small bit allowing the flight to take place. That afternoon we drove to the Franz Josef glacier ourselves and hiked a good bit, through glacial waters (bloody FREEZING) and enjoyed the views. Quite busy it was too! We got to spot some Kea Alpine Parrots attacking someone’s car (they pick at wiper blades, window seals etc) which brought a cheeky smirk to our faces (at least it wasn’t our van!)

We settled in again at the rainforest resort and stuck out another damp night.

This morning we arose at 6am hoping that the weather might allow us at least a 30 minute flight around the peaks to get some good photo’s and views. Alas it did not. I was told there were good views of the glaciers but the mountains were clouded over, so I decided not to bother going ahead with it in the end as it was too costly not to be seeing what I really wanted to. We’ll be passing through Mt. Cook Village later on so hopefully then we can have a second go and might be lucky weather wise.

We left Fox Glacier Township (21 km’s away from Franz Josef where the Helicopter co. in question was based) and started the near 300km’s drive to Wanaka. I drove the whole way today which wasn’t as bad as I expected, was thinking there would be more mountainous roads but they levelled out after passing through Haast Township. It misted & rained the whole way, until we got within 30-40km’s of Wanaka. Then it just…stopped. Rain gave way to sunshine, heat in the air and all was right with the world again!

So we are now at our base in Wanaka, the Alpine something or other holiday park. Compared to the place in Franz Josef it’s like the Hilton. Just had my first shower in 3 days and am now basking outdoor’s at a small picnic table typing this up in the 28 degree’s of oh so very nice sun!

Tomorrow we plan to visit Wanaka’s Puzzling World attraction on the way to Queenstown. We have 3 nights in a hotel there courtesy of my parents (thanks mum and dad!) where we have already booked a 5am balloon flight for Saturday morning so looking forward to that too along with the usual adrenalin rides and the likes. So fingers crossed that the weather stays positive and nice and sunny eh! Only thing is, 5am balloon flight, 4am get up timeL.

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~ by markattwooll on January 8, 2009.