[Scott] Last night after our kayaking, we drove south for about three hours and stayed at a holiday park in Westport. We arrived at about 10pm and fortunately they still had a spot for us. We were definitely excited to get showered up after two days in the salt water. We got up and found out that our Subaru suffered some vandalism back in CO, which really bummed us out. Somebody threw a river rock at the car and broke the windows and there was some other miscellaneous damage to the interior. However, Melinda offered to get everything taken care of and our car should be fixed when we return. That really puts our mind at ease knowing that Melinda is on top of everything! Are we being well taken care of or what? So I called the insurance company to authorize Melinda, and we headed out on the road. Thanks Melinda for getting things taken care of so we can enjoy our trip!!! So we regrouped and headed out on the road. We saw some amazing scenery on our drive down the West Coast – rugged coastline and the waves were really breaking in hard at points. This is certainly not a place for swimming! There are some really pesky bugs over there called Sandflies and we’re getting bit up pretty good. Tiny little pests about the size of fruit flies, but they really pack a punch and really leave you with a lot of itching. The road follows right along the coast and in some spots the road is up on some really high cliffs looking down over the coastline. The hills are very thickly forested for long stretches at a time. One area I wish we had time to stop at and explore was Paparoa National Park with all its rain forests. No matter how much time you allocate for driving here, it always seems to take much longer than you think. There are so many scenic views (which we stop at often), and the winding roads really keep the speed down - especially in a campervan. We arrived at Franz Josef Glacier around 5pm, and did about a 2 hour round trip hike up to the terminal face of the glacier. Really cool! These steep rock walls carved out by the glacier are enormous, and the grandeur of this place really leaves you in awe. There are many beautiful waterfalls. The rocks all along are interesting with the very noticeable gouging from the ice, and there are many huge boulders with interesting formations from the ice and river. The glacier is quite brown with all the soil and rocks on it, and the ice is blue-ish in color (I’m sure Uncle Ron will be able to explain to us why since we didn’t allow enough time to visit the information centre). When you’re standing there looking at the terminal face of the glacier up close, it’s amazing to look up and see these huge boulders up on top of the ice and think about them unpredictably falling hundreds of feet as the ice melts. This glacier naturally carries tons of rock and trees down through the canyon. They have the area roped off and there are signs everywhere warning you of all the dangers. The place kind of reminds me of Yosemite Valley in CA – the only other place I’ve ever been to that has a similar feel to this (although there aren’t any glaciers around of this size anymore in CA – not that I know of). Another interesting thing was the signs through the valley saying things like “the glacier was here in 1750”, and this was at least 1-2km from where it is now. The effects of a large snowfall are seen in the movement of the glacier five years later. Wish we could spend more time here, but it’s going to have to be a hit and run since we have so much yet to see this week between here and Queenstown, including many hours of driving. So we drove a little further down the road to the town of Fox Glacier where there is another large glacier – these are the two largest glaciers in NZ and they’re about an hour or so apart. We found ourselves a Holiday Park to plug the campervan into, again nice facilities. Stef prepared a pasta dinner and I did the laundry.
Click here for more info on Franz Josef Glacier
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