After a dreadful Monday, we woke up to Tuesday expecting more of the same. We dropped the van off at the mechanics for it’s new turbo and popped round the corner for a coffee in a local cafe, right in the centre of Westport. We picked up the van early afternoon and the rest of our Tuesday was spent driving down the coast towards the glaciers.
We arrived just outside the town of Franz Josef, the access point to the first glacier and settled down for the night in a near bye stretch of field. We woke up the next morning and spent Wednesday 9th on a visit to the larger of the two, the Franz Josef Glacier. Arriving in the car park about an hours walk from the main view point for the glacier, we decided we would instead take the much longer of the walks, to a view point that would supposedly offer us a better vantage point to see the whole glacier. This walk was a return walking time of 5hrs20mins, instead of the normal walk with a return time of 1hr30mins. We packed up the usual fruit, biscuits, pies and water and headed out. 
The walk was pretty tough. Consistently changing it’s course of direction, left, right, up down and the hills we were climbing were very steep. About half way through, so only an hour in, we did actually have to stop for a water break. Although it was a little overcast that day, the heat was quite intense in the thick forest, so I don’t think that helped all that much. The view at the end of the track was actually quite a disappointment too. The line of sight was mostly covered up by overgrown bush so it felt like we’d done a lot of walking for nothing. The view of the top o
f the mountains though were pretty remarkable. We did also manage to come across a very small little pond along the way which reflected the mountains beautifully and made for a good photograph.
After a slog back to the car park, we decided we just hadn’t seen enough so we embarked on the easy trail, the one at 1hr30mins return. This was a much better view at the end and we’re really glad we did this now, even though we were quite tired and worn out from the other. The glacier, which is nested in between two rather green mountains, is a strange sight and will certainly be remembered as one of the highlights. We’d both been looking forward to seeing this and it didn’t disappoint. At the bottom there is also an entrance to a cave which we assumed ran all the way up the glacier, providing a tunnel for the streams to pass through and exit into the valley. The water was absolutely bloody freezing, there were even parts of the glacier which had come down stream with the water and rested on the rocks, showing no sign of melting any time soon.
That night we rested up about a 10 minute drive from Franz Josef, just a shy distance from the second glacier, Fox. The place we stayed was a lookout point for observing all of the mountains in the district and when we woke up in the morning, the view was another to add to the already rapidly growing list of insane views.
Mount Cook (far left)
We were also able to see all 3 peaks of Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. Standing at 3754m, it towers above all the other mountains surrounding it. Fox was just more of the same, just falling from the mountains in a slightly different shape and because the day was a lot brighter and clearer, we did actually get a better look at it right to the tops of the peaks.
We’d managed to get up a lot earlier to go and see this, so we decided to hit the roa
d and make our way along to Haast, the starting point for many of the southern scenic drives. After a nice lunch, we drove the road from Haast to Jackson Bay and managed to see some penguins, nesting far out on some rocks. There was also some lovely spots to sit and eat and the water was the bluest we’d seen for weeks. We then drove back to Haast before setting off to Wanaka, the small town about an hours drive north from Queenstown. The mountains and the lakes along this drive, were just INSANE. Everything had a very Lord of the Rings feel to it. The two lakes, Wanaka and Hawea sit cosily next to each other, seperated only by a mountain range which also surrounds them. The small town of Wanaka sits proudly at the southern tip of Lake Wanaka and boasts some of the best panoramic views in the country.
We stayed the night in Wanaka, woke up the next morning and did a little bit of shopping in some of the local surf/ski/outdoor shops. By evening it was time to move on so we set off to our next stop, Queenstown. Arriving down a road which looked like it had been lifted straight out of Gran Turismo, we finally camped up at a campsite nested right in the centre of the city. We’ve got two nights here and that doesn’t really seem like enough, so we’ll see how we get on. Bye for now.
Love the lads. X
Through Haast Pass
