The last furlong
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Tue 11 Aug 2009 19:44
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Hi Folks,
After all the excitement of Queens town it was back
on the road, not as early as our last trek but none the less it was before eight
that we extracted " Lazarus" out of his pit, he even managed to get his cloths
on and his PJ's were packed before eight, anyway map in hand we set off up the
West coast, such wonderful scenery all the way up to Wanika air field some 200
kms from Queens town, great little place , it houses a number of Spitfires and
Hurricanes from the second WW , I couldn't wait to get in , the whole thing had
a feeling of de javue as most of the displays were about all the Kiwi airmen who
had fought in the battle of Britain , most of the guys had been based at Thorny
Island, Emsworth, and other Hants and Sussex airfields during the summer of 41
and it was a reminder of some of the small memorial museums along the south
coast of England dedicated to the events of the second world war, we eventually
got away , although I had a desire to linger longer we still had another 200 odd
km to get under our belt to get to Franz Josef glacier, on departing Wanaka the
rain descended , and didn't stop for the next 200 kms, so it was a good job we
stopped at a salmon farm for a late lunch ! we might as well have dived in with
them as the rain just kept getting heavier and heavier, anyway the rewards at
the table did those little pink fellas proud, smoked salmon ah ........ its even
arousing my senses now a week after , back on the road again and by late after
noon we floated into Franz Josef, it appeared shut but most things do down here,
I don't think we saw more than thirty cars the whole 400 odd kms up here , but
views to die for never the less , our little motel room was very nice
and it made a change to have space again after the Queens town "bat cave"
experience.
Not much to see in the village really but we were
more concerned about the weather, as the liquid sun shine just kept a'comming
and we were wondering whether these places came with life rafts and paddles,
anyway we hunkered down for the night hoping it would clear by morning so we
could get up the glacier.
We awoke at 8 o/c to the sound of the piter
patter or in our case splish splosh as the rain had not abated all night, we
looked out the motel room expecting the van to have floated off but it was still
firmly planted to the gravel covered parking lot , we ventured out for
breakfast, good food was found in the small village, and we enquired as to the
best way to get up to the face of the ice wall, as the rain continued to fall
all bets were off on any helicopter or plane trip around the area, landing on
top of the glacier being the highlight of the trip, with great views, well the
sales blurb showed wonderful Kodak moments, may be I though it would be best to
take the brochures and photograph them ! anyway not to be put off we drove up
the pass to the car parking area, the river bed had a number of green posts
going off into the distance with all soughs of warnings about river
levels and ice falls are posted every were, not put off by either the signs
or the weather we set off fully clad in offshore sailing foul weather gear
towards the ice face, its basically a huge river bed covered in boulders
and streams flooding down the valley , forty minuets later we arrived
at the ice face , after wading through streams and clambering up and down
boulder banks, as you can imagine there weren't many punters up there so we had
the views more or less to ourselves very interesting , looking at the
history of the glacier it amazed me that this glacier is one of the worlds
fasted moving, up to a metre a day ! both forward and back , in 1900 the glacier
filled the whole valley, in fact it covered the car park 40 mins away , by the
1970's it had retreated up the valley almost to the mountain base, now though it
is advancing down the valley, it will be interesting to see were it is in ten
years time ! anyway we took the picks and walked back down the river bed,
Lyn was wrapped up in her winter warmers in the van, probably the best place to
be all wet things considering.
That was really the end of the day as the rain
continued to fall, we retreated to our motel and spent the rest of the day
reading and watching TV.
Next day we were off to Picton for our date
with the ferry back to Wellington, another long drive 600 km up the west
coast to Graymouth, and it rained all the way up the west coast, once we
reached this town and started inland the rain cleared and as we passed over
between the mountain range the sun came out and the valleys sprawled out before
us, covered in vineyards and as dry as a bone, its an amazing sight going from
a green wet landscape to a dry landscape within the space of
twenty kms, we arrived at the ferry in time to have a
quick look around before boarding the boat back to the capitol and our beds ,
which we eventually clambered into by 22:00 .
It was going to be a busy day on the morrow as Jack
was off back to the UK and we have to adjust back to work mode on the flats
..
BFN from the very damp Noah's and a wet
sparrow
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