Pancake Rocks and Glaciers, Double Rainbows and Heli-Rafting

The South Island of NZ is one of the few places on earth in the “roaring 40s”.  This is a band around the globe where the winds roar, the oceans rage and storms…well….storm.  Considering this fact, it was strange we hadn’t really come across weather to match our geographical location.

Until now.

Misty, windy, rainy, a sheer joy to travel this road ;)

Travelling in pyjama bottoms....classy

Today we were driving to Punakaiki, famed for its “pancake rocks” (I’ll come back to the pancake bit later) and blowholes.  The rocks are geologically unique and Julia was very excited to see them.  High-tide, which was due to be around 5.30pm, was the time to see them, so with a fairly long way to go we set off early…..again J

….and pretty much immediately the heavens opened up and dumped on us.  High winds, driving rain and well, more rain.  At times it was like driving through a waterfall.  No matter which way the road turned it seemed to be coming from in front of us.  However Babette was still warm and dry on the inside and coping admirably with the roads, even if the GPS had us sometimes driving in mid-air and barked at us to “turn round!” or “turn right in 50m”, straight off a mountain-side into oblivion.

Nothing like a blind corner on a one lane road in the rain

We had our thermos flasks of coffee and tea and some snacks (jerky included….mmmmmm…..meat based dried goods!) and our spirits were strangely high given the conditions.

Our darling

On arriving at the camp-ground we were met with our first grumpy owner, but that only served to make us smile.  Weirdos!  We pulled up and listened to the roar of the ocean behind our bedroom window and smiled again…..tonight was going to be cool.

With the weather doing its best to dampen our spirits, Julia surprised me with a wonderful suggestion..Wuerstchen Gulasch…..or sausage goulash!  Perfect food for a miserable, cold and wet day.  So up into the kitchen she popped whilst yours truly kind of deflated in one of the comfy chairs.  The drive had knackered me out mentally and I was glad of the rest.

TASTE23 goes Gulasch

As Julia cooked, 3 more Babette’s joined us in the campground….which was a trifle surreal.  We’d spent a wee while on the road and spotted one other van like ours and now here we were with 3 of them!

Happiness is a Julia about to eat some Wurst

Once we had dined like Hungarian Kings on Julia’s fine fare, we wrapped up and ventured out onto the beach behind Babette.  It was so beautiful as the sun came out briefly and we were able to listen to the magnificent waves smashing against the shoreline. I think the noise of the waves and sight of the cliffs in the distance just wound Julia up to see her “Pancake” rocks….so off we trotted back to Babette.

By the time we made it back those 50 metres it was raining again.  Grrrrr…..to walk a kilometer there and back or drive?  Driving would mean preparing our darling for the road, which though not a massive chore, is still a little annoying.  So we braved the rain, knowing we’d be wet when we came back.

A photo for you Rudi :)

As the drizzle came down, we went up.  The hill wasn’t long, but by the time we got to the top we were already soaked through.  My waterproof jacket had been a bone of contention in Vietnam.  Julia had worn it for a day of heavy rain and come back wet, claiming it wasn’t waterproof.  I was having none of it, saying how I had never got wet and how it was quite clearly waterproof.   I now know that a) Julia was right b) it is annoying wearing a waterproof jacket that is NOT actually waterproof and c) the badges on the jacket were manifest lies.

It looked wet on the outside...it WAS wet on the inside!

I have that jacket no more.  Just saying.

Me?  I see faces.....the Kiwis....they see Pancakes!

More "Pancake" Rocks

We walked around the tightly controlled walkway that wound its way along the cliff face.  We marveled at nature’s artistry in carving out such beautiful formations and also at the geological nightmare that must have thrown up the cliffs in the first place.  What I failed to do, was see how these rocks got the moniker “pancake rocks”.  They are, in essence, a set of rocks that have layers in them…..that’s it.  They aren’t round.  They aren’t brown.  They don’t make you want to reach for your maple syrup.  They are rocks.  In layers.  Hmmmm.

Boom!

The sea was thunderous, majestic in its power as it hurled wave after wave of water at the rocks below us.  The spray reached its way hundreds of feet into the air and up through the blowholes.  It looked like the rocks themselves were smoking as a fine mist wound its way up into the sky.

A blowhole in action

One for you Serge....literally

We photographed our way around and enjoyed ourselves as best we could, but truth be told, it’s quite difficult to truly unwind and appreciate nature when you’re getting soaked in windy conditions.  So we didn’t hang about long and headed back to warm and cosy Babette.

Her toilet doubles as a drying room, so we set up the drying line and turned Babette into a Launderette.

Getting the cinema ready for the evening

That night we did indeed doze off to the thunder of waves against shore and boy oh boy was that wonderful to hear (for me…..Julia….not so much).  Open nature gives Julia the willies, so waves become tsunamis, rain becomes floods and freedom camping an excuse for her imagination to run riot.

Next morning dawned pretty much bright and clear. 

This drive down the coast was another incredible example of scenery deluxe a la NZ.  We’ve driven Route 1 from San Francisco to LA and to all those proud Yanks out there, I apologise now, but this road from Punakaiki to Franz Josef Glacier (FJG) was immense.

DAS ist ein coastline!

A great bridge to play "Chicken" on

Nice wood

We stopped time after time to take photos (*Ed. Julia just informed me we stopped only twice…….I informed her that she shouldn’t let truth get in the way of a good blog post).  

By the time we finally got to FJG the sun was blazing and we were grinning from ear to ear.  Aside from there being a wonderful hike to the glacier, there was also supposed to be some heli-rafting on the Perth River.  The lady in the campground office was very different to the lady in Punakaiki.  She could smile, she could laugh, she could make conversation and above all she could be helpful and booked us onto a tour (river permitting) in the morning……EXCITING!

Not all hikers look dull

Now hiking to me always brings up images of 50 or 60 year olds with beards and sensible footwear, those safari trousers that unzip to become shorts, ski poles and thermos flasks.  Seeing as I have the beard, the greying hair (what’s left) and a thermos flask, perhaps I am being hypocritical in scorning hikers.  However either way, I have to admit to not being overly interested in the average hike.  Luckily my wife is a German of stubborn tendencies and before long we were on the road.

How I would have loved this sign in Cambodia!

It was quite warm out and we set off up the glacier in bright sunshine.  Now this is where NZ proves how diverse it can be.  The walk up is through a rainforest.  Again, let me repeat, you walk through a RAINFOREST to get to a GLACIER.  How does that work? Actually, it works very well.  The plant life was amazing, however the animal life was….well…..there wasn’t any.  We saw the odd wasp (friends will know how I can always sense a wasp!) and that’s about it, not even spiders or birds.  I suppose NZ really does take it’s pest/animal/weed control seriously.

There is a big movement in NZ against indiscriminate spraying of poison....I wonder why?!

Glacial Rainforest....2 words that really don't belong together

As you can see, Lake Wombat is a 3.7km round trip

The guidebooks said the hike was a good hour and a half each way (it was a 12km round trip after all), something we took as a challenge.  When we reached the glacier viewing point everything else just melted away.  In front of us we saw the vice like grip of the high mountains, stark against the bright blue sky and centre stage the swirling mass of ice and rock that is FJG.  For the geologically sound the “rock” I just mentioned is actually known as moraine.  That was our first geological fact in our blog and it may well be our last.

I say the sky was blue in front of us, however it was most definitely grey behind.  A light mist of rain was falling.  Normally we would have frowned upon this intrusion, but today we welcomed the rain; because with it came the finest example of a rainbow I have ever seen.  All the colours represented, so much so that the base of the arc went into a repetitive purple/dark blue layering.  As we stood, stared, took photo after photo, another rainbow appeared.  I’d never seen a double rainbow before and I doubt I’ll see another pair like this (he pauses for puerile sniggering at the innuendo there).

Rainbows, Glaciers and Cheesy Smiles :)

Now I will stop talking about rainbows (and pairs), before I have to go out and buy myself some heels or a handbag or something else rather effeminate!

Another one for Rudi

Back we marched to Babette and a relaxing evening, crossing our fingers that there wouldn’t be much rain tonight.  If it rained the heli-rafting wouldn’t be happening and that would be “sehr sehr nicht gut” as they say in Germania.

It's a bridge walkway in the middle of nowhere...how many
signs does it need!?

Tonight we had fish on the menu.  Warehou and Groper fillets to be precise.  Both native fish, neither of which we had eaten before.  Julia preferred one to the other, but we couldn’t remember which was which.  I could have lied….pretended I knew…but you know me…I would never simply “say something with confidence to make it true”

Back to rafting.  Our record with white-water rafting so far had been poor; NZ’s weather and water systems conspiring to destroy our hopes of showing you all photos and videos of us plummeting down rock-strewn rivers.  Tonight was no different – it rained and the next day there was no Perth River rafting.

Feels like moss....looks like moss

  

ARRRGH!  I wanted to be annoyed, I really did, but with so much on offer we shrugged, enjoyed breakfast in Babette and pushed on to Lake Matheson and Fox Glacier and do some hikes. 

First stop, Lake Matheson….or Mirror Lake.  To me it seemed kind of silly at first.  I mean, we all KNOW that water is a reflective surface and so there is nothing special about a lake mirroring things!  All I can say is, wait until you step out onto the little platform the Kiwis (not the little birds) have built to appreciate the reflections of Mounts Tasman and Cook in the water there.  Wow. 

Words fail me ;)

More reflections on mirrors

On a clear day you can see the tops of Mounts Cook and Tasman

At the time I thought this would be amusing....a cautionary tale for any would-be blogger

Spare change guv?

Julia enjoyed dried meat based snacks

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the walk around the thing (wouldn’t really call it a hike, more of a stroll to be honest) and watching Julia quick-step along the path surrounded by spiders’ nests was interesting, but the real glory of that morning was the absolute serenity of the reflected views in the lake’s surface.  In fairness, we should have spent longer there, but it was not to be and so we put Babette back on the road and went off to Fox Glacier.

The place was full of them

Julia skipping...clearly not taking the "hike" very seriously

Babette et Soeur

It was an hour or so there and upon arrival it was immediately different to FJG.  You pulled into a car park that was very much more rugged than FJG, which had a whole town built around it.  Here, there was the car park, some signs not to stand still in certain areas due to rock falls and a bloody great glacier at the other end of the valley.  We parked up next to another Babette, had a short chat with the San Franciscan couple  who drove her(they looked like “hikers” i.e. 60s etc) and then marched up the hill to see the face of Fox Glacier. 

Big-Ass Cliff Faces

Looking back I think this is when the true strength and might (tautology?) of NZs mountainous regions became apparent.  Anyone that’s seen Lord of the Rings knows all about the potential for big screen theatrics with these mountains; but seeing it live and coming from Europe (not North/South America where these kinds of mountains are normal), the sheer size and almost oppressive grandeur of these rocks is truly incredible. 

There is no mistaking that everything around you is on a bigger scale than humanity could ever achieve.  Earth brutally shoved these rocks out of the ground and Nature, in a series of equally brutal Ice Ages, laid down that bloody great block of ice called Fox Glacier.  We are simply a bunch of clever monkeys who’ve figured out how to survive longer than perhaps we should have done in the natural scheme of things.

Me and Moraine

Us and Moraine

Not sure what she is demonstrating here

The entrance to Fox Glacier carpark has some very strangely coloured pools of water....toxic waste?

I've never been told to "drive 256km then turn right"

Now we had a decision to make; do we push through to Queenstown, probably arriving just after dark or stop in Wanaka for the night?  We dearly wanted to go canyoning and the company that operated the only real (by that I mean extreme) canyoning trip in the region was based in Wanaka.  Unfortunately we hadn’t been able to get through to them be phone, so in the end we opted to stop in Wanaka.

Blue sky at the end of the tunnel

This forest looked really primordial ....doesn't quite translate (as Julia is fond of saying) but you "get the picture"

Turns out the reason why we hadn’t reached them by phone was that they were shut!  Duh!  So instead of booking our trip, we pulled up for a relaxed night in a local camp ground (nearly) on the shores of Lake Wanaka.  To make up for the lack of canyoning, we had our best showers yet and I had a big steak dinner J  Showers were fast becoming a means of differentiating one camp ground from the next and the ones we had here were delightful.

Cleaned, rested and in my case full of steak, we settled into bed and a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones before we dozed off, ensconced in the warm embrace of Babette, not knowing what tomorrow would bring.