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Sunday, 8 January 2012 - (Franz Josef) Ice

We left our impromptu overnight stop in Haast this morning and before long made it here to Franz Josef (circled), famous for its namesake glacier located just up the river. Some 25km back down the road is Fox Glacier, also worth seeing but Franz is reputed to be the more interesting of the two. Franz and Fox are on the West Coast of the South Island which is notorious for its shitty weather, but we apparently got their hottest day of the summer today - good stuff. Anyway, Kristina turns the big 25 this coming Thursday, so to celebrate her quarter century I surprised her with a guided walk up the Franz Josef Glacier. She would have preferred the helicopter option, but it's not like she's turning 30 ;)
Anybody can walk to the face of the glacier, but some folk aren't content with that and (illegally) jump the barrier fence for a closer look. Some of those folk end up getting wiped out by icefalls or rockfalls. In 2009 two tourists met their maker in New Zealand after doing exactly that - the digger in the photo above had to be brought in to retrieve their bodies, and that's just one example. In short, jumping the barrier is a big no-no.		So what did we do? We jumped the barrier hehe. The difference is we had a guide to keep us on the beaten track and out of harm's way, though there are obviously still inherent risks. In June 2010, an Australian tourist fell to his death during a guided hike of the glacier.

So up we went. This rock at the face of the glacier is about a foot deep, under which it's all solid ice.		The length of all glaciers change yearly as they advance or retreat in line with the amount of snowfall and the speed at which they melt (as determined by sunshine hours and rainfall). During the last ice age some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, both Franz and Fox reached the sea. In the ensuing thaw they retreated back possibly further than their current positions today. Then come the 14th century a mini ice age descended and for centuries the glaciers advanced, reaching their greatest extent around 1750. Since then the twin glaciers have ebbed and advanced on a cyclic basis. Franz is currently about 12km long, terminates 19km from the Tasman Sea, and is moving forward at about a metre a day.

Once we made it to the ice we strapped on our spikes (called crampons) and went exploring!

I shot this right as Kristina almost slipped on her ass hehe. It was much cooler on the glacier but at this time of year shorts and t-shirt were almost sufficient.		Ice ice baby - and lots of it. A glacier is basically nothing more than snow that fell sometime in the past and, before it had time to melt, was subsequently compacted by further snowfalls to such an extent that it becomes ice. All that snow/ice has to go somewhere, and rather than continue building up layer on layer, gravity pulls it down the path of least resistance towards the sea (as can be seen quite clearly in the very first image above).		There are some pretty amazing crevasses up there, all very deep-blue in colour. That blue ice is called... blue ice, and is basically the most compacted ice.

I talked about our native Kea the other day on our way to Milford. Well they're everywhere here too, except there are no cars around here to entertain them.		Looking back down the valley, that has been carved out by the glacier over millennia.		Every time there is a decent rainfall (which is often in these parts), the tracks laid out by our guides melts away. So our man was busting out another one for us ad-hoc with his trusty pickaxe.

These awesome tunnels are called worm holes, created by flowing water (i.e. melted ice) from further up the glacier melting its way through over time. In I went head-first with my ass following closely behind (my butt that is, not Kristina). Video here.				Further up the glacier the ice was covered in crap - dust from rock falls which are prevalent in this particular section of the glacier. A couple weeks ago an entire cliff face gave way and showered the glacier (probably the result of another Christchurch earthquake). Despite what it looks like though, we weren't under the path of any falling rocks here.

We were on the ice for a couple hours, and it would've been awesome to see the top of it up there but despite how close it looks it's actually some 12km away hehe. Oh well.

This is the river of melted ice at the bottom of the glacier, moving pretty swiftly. She sure is melting!		And then from cold water to hot. This is the shower in our dorm room at our hostel. Note there's only one tap. In most cases, that would mean it's a cold shower only, but in this case that tap is the hot tap - there is no cold tap hahaha! So I turned it on and of course got bloody scolded! Our roommate assured me it would cool down on its own in a couple minutes, which it did, but I couldn't tell whether it had actually cooled or I'd just gotten used to the temperature. Either way, I've never seen that before (and I've seen a lot of showers).

Monday, 9 January 2012 - (Greymouth) Lake Matheson

Back into New Zealand's beautiful native forest today, of which there's no shortage particularly in the South Island.

This was part of a 90-minute walk, which as per usual took us twice that because of all my/our pissing about taking photos hehe.				Check this little fella out. Given enough time this will unfurl itself into...		...this - the fern which you may (or may not) recognise as the emblem of many New Zealand sports teams.

No shortage of ferns either.		Yup, just hanging out in my backyard :)
Anyway, we didn't just come here for some more forest time.
We came here to see this - the gorgeous Lake Matheson, just outside of Fox Glacier.
When we went to see Mt. Cook last week (New Zealand's highest mountain) it was shrouded in cloud. Well here it is again, seen from the other side, and once again shrouded in cloud :( Anyway, we're in Greymouth for tonight before heading through to one of my favourite places in the world tomorrow - Hanmer Springs!

Tuesday, 10 January 2012 - (Hanmer Springs) Pancakes

A typically gloomy day on the West Coast today. New Zealand gets a lot of moist westerly winds off the Tasman Sea, and the Southern Alps act as a natural barrier against which all that moist air gets trapped, and the West Coast cops it hehe. Meanwhile in Christchurch over on the east coast, we get lots of sun :)
After leaving Greymouth this morning we stopped in here at Punakaiki, famous for its Pancake Rocks and blowholes. According to local information boards, a layering-weathering process called stylobedding has formed these limestone rocks into what look like piles of thick pancakes. Pretty amazing stuff.

Also amazing are the blowholes. When the tide is right, the sea surges into these caverns and booms through blowholes. It's quite an impressive sight, like this for example. The tide was out while we were here so we didn't see any of that, but the sea still makes a huge boom as it crashes against this constantly eroding rock.				Pancakes at the Pancake Rocks, of course.

Later on we started heading back inland and through the mountains via the stunning Lewis Pass highway. Shit we've got some nice roads! Kristina and I are camping in Hanmer Springs tonight, and meeting up with the family here tomorrow for a couple more nights. Hanmer is one of my most favourite places in the world so I'll be banging on about it plenty more tomorrow.

Wednesday, 11 January 2012 - (Hanmer Springs) Yeehaw!

So this is Hanmer Springs, a gorgeous little alpine town just a 90-minute drive from Christchurch, and the main thermal resort on the South Island. As a kid I came here often with the family, and later on there was many a good (drunken) night had here with the mates. It has a permanent population of under 1,000 but as a popular tourist destination its population swell during the holidays. In summer it's hot, in winter it's covered in snow, and it's always an awesome little destination. Anyway, Mum and Jared and co came up from Christchurch for a couple days to meet us.
Activity of the day - horse trekking hehe. Mum has been owning and riding horses all her life but it's something Jared and I never really got into, as much as she probably would have liked us to ;)

We each mounted our steeds and set off through the scenic Hanmer hills, led by a young German chick who had the sense of humour of a wet moth. All of us got told off for something hehe. Jared got growled at for riding with no hands, Mum (a very experienced rider) got growled at for making her horse trot when she apparently should have only had it walking, and so forth. Video here of some of the fun.

Not bad huh! We were on the horses for about an hour or so, and despite the very abrupt Krout it was pretty good fun that left us with a sore ass - video here of why that was.
From there we went to sooth our butts in the main draw card of Hanmer - the Thermal Pools! More on these tomorrow.		Din-dins with the family - we're such a good-looking bunch!

Thursday, 12 January 2012 - (Hanmer Springs) Quarter century

Happy birthday to Kristina! 25, well tomorrow our time, but whatever.		So what did we do for her birthday? We sent her up a hill - her favourite.

This is a nice easy 30-minute walk up Conical Hill which overlooks the town. Nice and easy that is unless you did a big horse trek the previous day and have a sore ass.

There had to be a tree in the way of course but there's Hanmer plonked down there.		And that's us.		And that's a helicopter carrying four dead deer. Lovely. They're a pest in New Zealand and are often hunted, whereas in Texas they're left to roam all over front yards and wander into traffic.

On the way back down the hill Jared and Madi freaked the hell out of us by taking a shortcut to get ahead, hiding behind a bush, and waiting hehe. Good re-enactment here.				Back in town we browsed the shops, grabbed some lunch, and hit the pools again - this time to sooth our legs.

Hanmer is built around a popular hot spring which was discovered in the late 19th century. The hot spring water in Hanmer's Thermal Pools mixes with fresh water to produce pools of varying temperatures. Aside from the fresh-water 25-metre lap pool and hydroslide pools there are several landscaped rock pools which are all interlinked and hover around 35 degrees, aqua-therapy pools which hover around 34, three hexagonal pools which hover around 36 to 40, and sulphur pools which hover around 42 to 44 and stink of eggs and attract all the wasps. If you use that terribly nonsensical Fahrenheit system then that's all between 93 and 111. It's a pretty large complex which seems to grow a little bigger every time I've come here over the last several years, and it's in the perfect location and surroundings to just sit back and relax. In winter it's usually covered in snow, and soaking in the pools while getting snowed on is awesome (until it's time to get out).
From the pools we headed back into town for a birthday dinner. The restaurant we went to is run by a Czech dude, and most of his staff are also Czech. And, like ze obnoxious Germans at ze horse trek yesterday, this lot were also a rude and abrupt bunch! I don't remember the locals being like that when I was their part of the world - strange. Anyway, most of us ended up ordering pizza, which came out terribly dry and with missing ingredients hehe. Despite receiving an appropriate discount as a result, we still left rather disappointed. We then wandered around the road to a dessert restaurant, run by New Zealanders this time (we'd had enough of foreigners in need of an attitude adjustment). We put in our order and waited, and waited, and waited, and watched as people who had come in long after us subsequently received their orders and left again. I kicked up a fuss because given the significance of the day with it being Kristina's 25th and all I was now pretty pissed off by all of this, as we all were. Without actually saying so, the three chickies running the show had clearly lost our order. When we had initially placed our order we didn't actually pay for any of it, instead saying we'll get the bill later in case we wanted to add on to it. Unbeknown to us however, that didn't appear to be the normal process - everyone else was paying up front so I'd say that's how our order slipped through the cracks. Anyway, after a 45-minute wait for a piece of bloody cheesecake or whatever, our damn dessert finally made an appearance. We were each offered a free iced coffee/chocolate/whatever to make up for the blunder, which was pretty nice. Next thing half the lights went out and the chickies started to close up the place before we'd even had a chance to finish our chow! So Mum and I figured fuck it, if they weren't clued up enough to notice that the six-person table right in front of them had been sitting there twiddling their thumbs while everybody else came and went, then they probably weren't clued up enough to remember we hadn't paid for anything either. So with that we got up, said thanks, and all left hahaha! So that was Hanmer in a nutshell. An awesome little spot which does actually have some really good restaurants and the like, but don't expect much in the way of service evidently.

Friday, 13 January 2012 - (Christchurch) Slight change of plans
While we were in Southeast Asia most all of our accommodation had free internet available. Unfortunately in New Zealand it isn't like that - most places charge for it. That being the case, we usually only get on every few days or so - me to upload this website and Kristina to update her Facebook etc. While preparing to leave Hanmer this morning we found a cafe offering free Wi-Fi internet with any purchase, so we each grabbed a $4 coffee and spent about three hours on it hahaha! Anyway, upon checking her email today for the first time since Greymouth four days ago, Kristina found out her grandfather had passed away on that same day (US time) at the ripe old age of 98. I know some of her family keep tabs on this website so I firstly just want to offer my condolences; Kristina often spoke of her grandfather as one of the smartest cookies she's ever known.

His funeral is to be held this Sunday, and despite finding out so late, there was still a possibility Kristina could return home to be there and stay a while, and we could just carry on with this trip some time later. After leaving Hanmer en route to Kaikoura we discussed it further, and I made a couple phone calls to find out what was feasible. After learning that flights were indeed available and able to get her there in plenty of time, we decided to return to Christchurch instead since it was only an hour away so she could Skype her family and discuss her options (and get her ass on a plane if need be). In the end however, she and her family decided the circumstances are such that returning home isn't the best idea. So it's a pretty shitty situation for poor Kristina to be in and she feels rather bad about it all, and I was perfectly happy to just chill here at home with the earthquakes in Christchurch (I'm sure my Mother would've been happy with that too) until she was ready to come back but as it stands we'll be carrying on.

Our original plan was to be in Kaikoura on the South Island's east coast for a couple nights, and do a whale watching tour tomorrow (Kaikoura's main attraction) before heading up to Kaiteriteri at the top of the South Island. It's only a short drive from Christchurch to Kaikoura so we could have still done the tour tomorrow, but by the time we got around to sorting it the tours had all booked out hehe. To be honest neither of us are that mad about whales and dolphins etc. anyway, so instead we're going to stay in Christchurch with the earthquakes for these couple nights and then head up to Kaiteri as planned.

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