Hokitika to Westport

After visiting the glaciers I continued up the coast to Hokitika, Greymouth and Westport.

The beach where I camped at Hokitika.

Later that evening.

The following day I spent driving in the country following a circular scenic route. First stop Hokitika Gorge.

There is a swing bridge to cross the gorge, very beautiful there. Note the blue glacier water again.

I then travelled across country on an unmade road to Lake Kanlere stopping at Dorothy Falls on the way.

I stopped here at Lake Kanlere for lunch, intending to sit on the bank, benches provided, I gave up very quickly as I was getting bitten to death by sand flies. They are all up the west coast very tiny but draw blood and inject an anticoagulant. After each bite I swell up and itch for about a week.

There was a very interesting museum at Hokitika, not a lot to take pictures of except this Meccano model of a river gold dredger, it is a complete working model.

 

Hokitika main street.

I visited a small wild life centre, some of these eels are over 100 years old.

The reason for visiting the wildlife centre was to see an emu, they had 2 there but as they are nocturnal photographs were forbidden. At least I did manage to see an emu, as they are almost extinct the chances of seeing one in the wild are very unlikely.

I stayed in Greymouth for a night, not a lot there apart from an Irish Bar that sells genuine imported Murphy’s stout.

The beaches here on the Tasman Sea have loads of driftwood which people salvage for firewood. All the forests further south go right to the waters edge and the falling trees from the cliffs end up in the sea.

Continuing up to Westport I stopped at an area known as Pancake Rocks, nobody really knows why the rocks have layered in this way.

A colony of shags.

A couple of dolphins in the sea.

And another of those very busy fur seals.

The west coast glaciers

During my drive up to the glaciers it poured with rain all day, I found a campsite near the centre of Fox Glacier township and set up camp for the night. After raining all night it brightened up in the morning and I decided to take the walk out to the foot of the glacier as it was all flat walking. There was a car park about 500m from the foot. There were kea birds in the car park, I am told they are very fond of ripping off any rubber on cars but these seemed happy just to pose for the cameras.

The walk was along the side of the river and quite a reasonable footpath.

I did not get all the way as it started to rain again and by the time I got back to the car park I was freezing cold and soaked.

The next morning the weather looked a bit better but not for long.

I stayed at Fox one more night and decided to move on to Franz Joseph, This town was just as uninspiring as Fox especially when it’s raining. The next day the weather brightened up a little and I decided to take a helicopter flight  to view the glaciers.

This is a better way to travel!

 

First we went up Franz Joseph Glacier.

The surface of the glacier is not suitable for walking on, also you can see the blue colouring of the ice which introduces the bright blue in the glacier rivers.

We then went on to Fox Glacier. I was lucky to have the front seat.

This was where I was walking two days before.

The plan was to land on this flat area at the top but the clouds were coming over the top of the mountain quite fast and the pilot decided that it was too risky as we may have had trouble getting off again.

There is a river that runs down the mountain and under the glacier.

Back to Franz Joseph following the route of the mountain road that I had driven in along.

A very enjoyable flight, it was a pity about the landing as I would like to have got some pictures other than through the windows of the chopper but the picture below show the pilot made the right decision, it was raining again by the afternoon and we did get a 25% discount as we had not landed.

Arrowtown to Fox Glacier

I did not stay in Queenstown but at Arrowtown a small gold rush town a few km north.

The museum was interesting with a lot of history of the gold rush era. Below a set of gold weighing scales.

From Arrowtown I took the scenic mountain route to Wanaka.

Lake Wanaka.

The inevitable Irish bar.

The cinema where I understand the seating is a collection of second-hand armchairs and sofas, Unfortunately I had seen the film they were showing that night so I did not go. 

You would not find a display like this in a shop in England now, just not PC. I told the lady in the shop and she found it unbelievable.

Lake Hawea on the way to Fox Glacier.