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Places around the world

Franz Josef & Fox Glaciers

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It is a 2.5-3hr drive from Greymouth to Westland Tai Poutini National Park where the famous Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are located.  We arrive early for our scheduled helicopter ride as we are excited. However, to our dismay it was postponed due to weather.  Shoot!  Lucky for us, we are here for a few days so we reschedule for the next day.  

We decided to go on several hikes to occupy our newly available day.  The first hike we go is called Callery Gorge Walk which takes us about 1.5hrs.

Our trail ends at another swing bridge. The right photo is the bridge from the street.

Franz Josef Glacier Walk

We head to the Franz Josef Glacier Valley walk which takes about 1hr.  This is a very easy walk on a well marked trail that leads to a large viewing platform. 

Matt has some fun with a cardboard photo of a ranger.

This is a sad fact…the Franz Josef glacier reached all the way to the viewing platform in 1908 and now look at it.

Franz Josef Glacier & Many Other Glaciers

There are many names for this one glacier, but the main one is “Te Norma a Tuawe” which means the bed of Tuawe who is a minor god.  It also is called Roimata o hone which translates to the tears of the avalanche maiden.  It is rumored that a local maori convinced her lover to traverse the mountain.  He was killed in an avalanche and it is said her tears froze creating the glacier.

The next day we arrive at Ultimate Discoveries for our 8:15am helicopter ride and we were informed that the departure is delayed due to a low, cloud layer near the heli pad.  No problem, we hang out and chat with the other guests and team that work at Ultimate Discoveries.  

This company is a family run business and they have the best customer service!  I would highly recommend them – you can take a 25, 35, or 45 minute flight and won’t be disappointed.  I hop in the front seat and capture some stunning shots of Franz Josef.

A Slight Diversion

A rain storm was expected to arrive in the afternoon, but it surprised us and was rolling in pretty quickly early in the morning.  This unfortunately prevented us from turning west towards Fox and Tasman Glacier and Mount Cook.  But our skilled pilot took us east toward several other glaciers.  Unfortunately I could not write down their names, take photos, and enjoy the ride so you just get gorgeous photos.

A few more glaciers – I just love the blue tint in the snow.

This long slide is one of my favorite shots (lower left corner).

And of course, there are a lot of mountains with no snow or glaciers due to climate change.  The reflecting pools are so pretty against the green and brown mountains.

It is summer so I assume there is more snow in the winter, but our pilot told us that the glaciers are shrinking by 1 kilometer every 10 years.

Landing on Shackleton Glacier

We dropped down on Shackleton Glacier for a fabulous photo op and it was freezing!  Yes, Matt is in shorts and yes he is crazy and yes he was cold!

Certainly a once in a life time experience.

I love the blue hue on the ice.

Some fun shots of us inside the Airbus Squirrel.  Wayne road in the front on the way back.

After our amazing ride, we returned to the office where they offered us a $100 per person refund because we were only able to be up for 35 minutes vs the planned 45 minutes due to weather.  Wow, we did not ask for the refund, they offered it straight up.  This really is a top notch organization (thank you Aaron and Georgia).

Lake Matheson

One of New Zealand’s most beautiful and iconic lakes is Lake Matheson.  Every year thousands of people come to do the loop around the lake to capture photos of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman and their reflections.  We follow the red trail around the lake.

It is still a little drizzly and definitely cloudy so we don’t expect to see much.  But, it is a beautiful walk through an amazing rain forest and around a pretty lake so why not?

If we had a sunny and clear day, you would be able to see Mount Cook behind Matt and Mount Tasman behind Wayne.

We did get some pretty lake shots.

The top photo is what the view looks like on a clear, sunny day.  The bottom two photos are what we got – still beautiful, but simply not the same.

Glacier Fun Facts

  • There are over 2900 glaciers in New Zealand
  • The majority of the glaciers do not have names.  
  • A glacier has to be over an acre in size in order to be considered a glacier
  • There are only 3 glaciers in the world that come from rainforests and two are in NZ.  The Franz Josef and the Fox glacier.  The other is in Patagonia.
  • The last time they saw any glacier advancement was in 1986.

Kiwi Rehabilitation Center

I visit a kiwi rehabilitation center in Franz Josef.  They have two young kiwis here and are incubating dozens of others.  The organizations collects the eggs and incubates them for 78 days. Kiwi eggs have a 5% survival rate in the wild so they collect them, grow them to maturity, then release them in the wild.  The babies take 3 days to hatch and are born with site, smell, taste, and hearing.  The Kiwi are kept in natural habitats, taught to forage, and then released back into the wild.

  • Hotel: Alpine Glacier Motel
  • Kilometers Traveled:   47km
  • Total time traveled: 35 minutes
  • Kilometers walked: 5.5km

The kiwis are nocturnal.  No photography is allowed in the center unfortunately.

Events from this blog occurred in early March.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual events.  Did you miss our blog post on the pancake rocks, Mitchell goldmine, and shanty town?

Pancake Rocks, Goldmine, and a Shanty Town

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We leave Westport and head toward Greymouth.  In route, we come across a super cool hidden gem in Charleston called Mitchell’s Gully Historic Goldmine.  This goldmine was established in 1866 and produced over 130 tons of gold dust.

All over the entire property are old pieces of antique equipment.  Sure, some people may think it is junk, but I see it as century old relics begging to be fixed and made operational soon.

The owner has the original water wheel, which is in dire need of some TLC, but he hopes to get it working again soon.

He has the last remaining stamping batteries (crushing machines) in Charleston.

One of the old settlers cottage is still standing, but it is full of more antique mining equipment.

We were able to wonder through dozens of tunnels (with flashlights).  Most of the holes are carved right into the rocks and hillsides, but some are overtaken by tree roots (look at the bottom center photo).  Did the cave come before the tree roots or did the tree roots form along the entrance of the cave?

Many of the cave walls still have gold dust!  And one of the caves had glow worms!  The photo isn’t so good, but they were there, I promise.

The Process

The current owner is a descendent of one of the original owners and gave us a run down of the gold mining process.  He said that it would take sanding down 20tons of sand to get one ounce of gold.  Now that is a lot of work!

The piece of gold in my hand (lower right corner) is 1/3 of an ounce and worth $1000NXD.

We walked a giant loop around this immense property and the trail was marked by the original dolly tracks.  This place is so very cool. I sure hope the owner is able to get some help to restore it!

Beautiful views

We continue on our way and come across some gorgeous views!

Punakaiki – Pancake Rocks

This little town is famous for its pancake rocks.  You may think, “pancake rocks” what, why?  Well check them out – kind of obvious as they look like a stack of pancakes.

They have a really well tended 45-minute track that walks you around the mountain edges to see all of the beautiful formations.

These pancake rocks are really super cool.  I am sitting on a short stack of cakes 🙂

The blow hole was not too active as we went by, but the gully sure is amazing.

Let’s see how much imagination you have….can you see the images from the lower photo in the top photo?

The Pororari River Track

Time to get our daily walk in so we make our way to the Pororari River track.  This is about 1.5 hour hike on a well-maintained trail along the river, through a few caves, under a few trees and ending at a swing bridge.

This is a really cool trail that takes you through several caves carved out of the rock mountain side and through the tree roots!

There were some pretty darn steep portions, but overall I would rate this a moderate level trail.

We end at a beautiful swing bridge.

We stop in for lunch at Speight’s Brewery (one of the boy’s favorite NZ beers).

Shantytown – Greymouth

Our last stop is Shantytown just outside the town of Greymouth.  We arrive just before closing so they gave us a bit of a discount and told us we had an hour.  The good news is that there were not many people around, but the bad news is that we missed the opportunity to dress up for an old time photo, missed the steam train, and missed the hologram room.

All of the buildings are from the 1800’s.  Most have been relocated and restored from other cities around NZ.  They even had a few stables and liveries.

Of course a general store, barber, and theater.

A beautiful, tiny church.

An old stream train.  We missed the last ride by a few minutes, but the conductor humored us with all of our questions.

They had a collection of old engines back in the foundry.

We had some fun at the county jail and outhouse (check Matt out!)

Since Matt was misbehaving, we locked him up!

Old Friends in a New Country

We had met Fran and Grant (sailing boat Te Kinga)  in French Polynesia over 2 years ago.  They have property in the south island and had invited us to stay.  They converted an old church into an Air BnB but we got to stay with them in their beautiful tree house!  You can check them out at Hidden Valley Lodge.

  • Hotel: Hidden Valley Lodge
  • Kilometers Traveled:  175km
  • Total Time Traveled:  3hrs
  • Kilometers Walked:  13.1km

Events from this blog post occurred in early March.  Our posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual events.  Be sure to read our last blog post!

Murchison, Westport and a Swing Bridge

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Our destination today is Westport, but we stop several times on along the way.  About an hour into our drive we pull over at the Hope Saddle Lookout.  We knew we would have wonderful views as we had been winding all around the mountains and through the forest.  The clouds were hanging low and dancing around the peaks.

This spot is famous for saving over 30,000 hectares of forest as the NZ government made an accord with the logging companies.

A sweet little church popped up seemingly out of nowhere.

Murchison and NZ Longest Swing Bridge

We arrive into Murchison which is the home to New Zealand’s longest swing bridge.  It is 110 meters long and is suspended 172 meters high over mighty the Buller Gorge.

We were lucky, there were not a lot of tourists here when we arrived.  We paid $10NZD per person and eagerly headed toward the bridge.  It was a fairly calm day, not a lot of wind so the only swinging came from our own weight.

The views were beautiful from the center of the bridge.

When we got to the other side, we discovered several trails that led to a beach and Ariki Falls.  Super easy walks that led us to beautiful places.  The top left photo shows the flood mark in 2021 – check out the white arrow – it is well over 2.5-3 meters tall.

The Ariki Falls were a really nice diversion and oh so pretty.

This is also where they did a lot of gold mining in this location.  They had a replica of a house used by the miners.

Westport

We arrive into Westport about 6 hours after we left Nelson.  It is a nice little beach town.

We enjoy a nice lunch at Donaldo’s and then head to Carters Beach Seaside (our hotel).  Next we drop our bags and make our way to the beautiful, and very long black sand beach.

We then head to Cape Foulwind where there is a nice hike to a lighthouse.  Yep, you read that right, “Cape Foulwind” and it is very obvious why this town got its name once you arrive….yuck!

This photo shows the original wooden lighthouse that was built in the late 1800’s and to the right is the newer digital, unmanned lighthouse.  I like the original one better.

Pretty views from the base of the lighthouse.

Just 5km down the road is the famous seal colony located in Tauranga Bay.  To my surprise, there really weren’t that many seals – maybe they were all out hunting.

We ended our day with a bottle of rose on the beach at sunset.  I’d say this was a good day!

  • Travel:  210km
  • Hotel: Carters Beach Seasisde

Events from this blog occurred during the last week of February.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  Check out the Abel Tasman Caves in our last blog post.