I was feeling quite under the weather today so I was thankful for the long bus ride to the West Coast region. I literally slept every opportunity I had and it was probably the best thing for me. The ride took us from Christchurch crossing the Canterbury Plains, from the Pacific Ocean, over the Southern Alps and through to Westland and the Tasman Sea. The weather was gloomy with rain in and out most of the day so most of us just wanted to lay back on the bus and take naps with a movie playing.
We made a stop at Arthur's Pass through the alps for some pictures, toilets, and snacks. We saw several NZ Kea parrots at this stop. They aren't colorful parrots, they are an olive-grayish color and highly social and inquisitive. This mischievous behavior can cause problems with the humans. For instance, one landed on the road and several cars had to slow down and swerve around it because it wouldn't move; it seemed not to care.
Back on the bus to ride down the other side of the mountains to the Tasman Sea. We begin and it is raining and we see a grade sign for 16% grade!!! YIKES!!! Robbie our driver is a bit crazy too, telling crazy, dry humor jokes and always giving us bloody Americans a hard time. But it gets a bit scary going down 16% grade with switchback after switchback and he is peeking up at the TV screen to watch the movie with us and holding the microphone with one hand telling a story and driving a giant coach bus through the mountains with one hand! :S I mean he has traveled the beautiful nation probably a million times so he does know what he is doing and where he is going.
We got to the West coast and made a stop at a large stock property near Bell Hill. Landcorp Farming Limited is NZ leading agribusiness. It is an enterprise, but owned by the government. They have 137 farms, 400,000 hectares, 1.6 million stock unites and over 700 staff across NZ. We were at the Weka complex which is a very hard place to farm and ranch with the shingle soil and the ever changing weather dumping 2.8 meters of rain annually! Did I mention that the West coast is a coastal rainforest? On this complex they have deer, beef, dairy, and sheep. That day they were harvesting antlers which we were bummed we could not go see since deer farming is not a common occurrence where we are from. We stopped at the dairy unit where they utilize a rotary milking system. These seem to be on nearly every major dairy unit over here.
As we were taking a bus tour of the property we got stuck with the bus yet again! Second time on this trip so far! Their marshy, shingle soil sure does allow a giant coach bus to sink once off the road. Another John Deere tractor came to the rescue to pull her out. So we got to stand out in the rain for about 35 minutes while they got her pulled out.
Next, we continued to venture towards our final destination of Greysmouth. We stopped at the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes national park. these were pretty neat rock formations that literally look like pancakes stacked atop each other due to erosion and settlement over the years. The blow holes were cool too with neat surge pools too. It kind of reminded me of the movie The Goonies when they find the ship! What do you think looking at this picture?
Hokitika was another stop we made specifically for the New Zealand Greenstone store. The greenstone is a jade stone found in New Zealand. Very pretty and different shades of the green were given different meanings by the Maori. They also have different shapes for necklaces:
Fish hook = wealth
Twist = relationships
Another creature looking for protection/guardian
I bought a ring with a heart greenstone on it! Pretty excited about it!
Lastly, we finally made it to our final destination for the evening; Top 10 Backpacker Lodge in Greysmouth. We were about 100 meters from the Tasman Sea. The tide was pretty strong and we were highly discouraged from going into the water but we took pictures and enjoyed the view.
DAY 11
Time to hike Fox Glacier!!! I was excited for this as I have done similar hikes through Logan's Pass in Montana. It was forecast to be a fairly nice sunny day for the hike. A lot had shorts, t-shirt, and small raincoat on. We got our instructions, guides, equipment and headed up the valley to the glacier. It was nice and sunny until we got to the glacier itself and turned around and our guide said, "It looks like we have a SHORT shower coming up the valley."Remember we are in coastal rainforest where the weather is ever changing. The SHORT shower turned into about 30+ minutes worth where we all were soaked through our raincoats. Our hiking boots that were not going to get wet today as our guides said were now full of puddles. It sounds terrible but it was a pretty sweet adventure. With the rain coming down, that meant rocks started sliding down the hill side and the river and creeks were raging with water. At one of our easy water crossings from our way up was now full of guides grabbing hands of hikers to safely cross the creek that now seemed like a small river.
We get back and we are all soaked and cold but still had smiles on our faces. We just walked across a glacier.... in a rainforest! So we jumped on the bus and headed to Franz Josef for the evening where the Glacier Hot Pools were calling our names! Best $25 I have spent thus far! It felt so good after that chilly glacier hike!
That evening back at the Montrose Backpacker lodge we sat around visiting. Anders and I bought a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and some cheese and crackers! Yup, kept it classy for the evening! The next morning we were heading out at 8:00 am to make the 6 hour trek down the West coast to Queenstown where the real adventures were to begin!
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