Today we transited from Hokitika (hokitika hokitika hokitika&mdashstop that!) to Franz Josef Glacier for a walk, and then on around the corner of the mountain to the Fox Glacier area. The weather was cloudy with occasional bright spots, also frequent "nuisance rain"—misty rain just heavy enough you have to keep the wipers on.
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The road was as usual very quiet. There just aren't that many people on the west coast. And about half the other vehicles today? Rental camper vans, like ours!
Marian has been bitten by something a couple of times that caused extremely itchy inflammations. We suspect it may have been a sand fly.
We stopped at the Okarito Lagoon, a large salt estuary supposed to be a birder's paradise for many species. Nunh-uh, not today. We saw just one oystercatcher. On to the glaciers!
There are lots of glaciers in this island but Franz Josef and its neighbor, Fox, are the largest two and are easy to get to, hence popular with tourists. They are unusual in that they start at nearly 3000m and end up with their terminal moraines in a subtropical forest only a couple hundred meters up from sea level.
First glimpse of the glacier valley.
Why is a NZ glacier named for an Austro-Hungarian emperor? Some geologist's idea of political correctness in 1865. The real question is, why hasn't modern political correctness replaced him with a Maori name?
We did the walk to the glacier face. Later we found it is 6km (3.6mi) and felt right proud of ourselves, after we took our ibuprofen. We got a new "us" picture, too.
There are waterfalls.
Closer, you get a sense of the glacier's movement.
We saw this group of glacier-walking tourists coming down ice steps cut by their guide.
They left this guy behind to tidy up the trail.
At least there was sun up on the top of the glacier.
1 comment:
from Jean
Your photos are beautiful. It's such fun to see your trip as you go.
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