Day 12: Before the blue ice, green stone and smelly rooms
Today was a travel day. We hopped the bus early in the morning to head off towards Fox Glacier via the fertile lands of the Canterbury Plains. I was by now used to this rhythm of hanging out in a spot for a day and then traveling the next. It felt like being a rock band on tour, and with countryside so beautiful, who could complain? The bus felt like home, and I felt like I was on an extended grade school field trip.
The scenic highlight of the trip was in the Southern Alps: Arthur's Pass. The drive through was blessed by beautiful weather and gorgeous scenery. By lunchtime we made it to Hokitika, a small town famous primarily for greenstone. It's not quite as impressive as it was back in its heyday when tens of thousands of miners descended on it to mine for gold, but along the West Coast of New Zealand, it's supposedly the place to shop for crafts.
Jens and I strolled about town in quest of a suitable lunch destination. There must be some rule of travel that says that when you come upon some small town in your travels and you're only stopping through for a meal that you shouldn't expend more energy searching for the best restaurant than it's worth. We violated that rule, for sure, and while our diner sandwich was tasty, we left ourselves little time to explore too much more of the city. We stopped back at some greenstone shop to admire greenstone tikis (Maori pendants). The spiral is a popular design. Most day tours always seem to end up with a visit to some shop which provides the tour guides with kickbacks, but Johnny and Ange took us there purely to service those who wanted a souvenir for the trip home and left it up to us as to whether or not to stop in.
Onwards to Westland National Park, famed primarily for two glaciers named Fox and Franz (this last parenthetical to be pronounced in the dialect of the similarly named bodybuilders played by Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live, please). Before we made it into town, however, we made another stop for a hike around Lake Matheson. It's famous for offering reflected views of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman, and, being the lucky group we were, we were blessed with said views.
This was by far the longest bus ride of the tour thus far, and it almost proved too much. For some reason I felt woozy the whole way from Christchurch to Fox Glacier.
The weather as we hit the town named Fox Glacier was grey and gloomy. Johnny scanned the skies and warned us in advance that the heli-hike many of us had signed up for the next morning was unlikely to happen, and the scenic flight over the glaciers which I had also signed up for was definitely canceled. Fox Glacier town gets some 200 days of rain per year, so the chances of getting up to the top of the glacier in a heli are about the same as your chances of coming out ahead in blackjack in Vegas playing perfect strategy. I'd signed up for the heli-hike and was hopeful that my string of incredible luck with the weather would hold up. Gamblers on a lucky streak often grow greedier over time and end up disbelieving when their luck runs out. That was me.
The other downer this night was that the town of Fox Glacier has a very limited lodging selection, and despite that it's a scrum among tour groups for the over-priced rooms. Johnny warned us before we got off of the bus that our living quarters that night would be the least impressive of our trip. When we pulled up, I glanced over the exterior of the Fox Glacier Plaza Hotel and thought, "Doesn't look too bad to me." I grabbed my bags and room key and strolled to my room. So far so good.
Then I opened the door to my room and was greeted with the overwhelming odor of urine permeating a room the size the average women's shoe closet. The smell staggered me but I managed to crawl out of the room to fresh air before the fumes consumed me. I quickly formulated a strategy: I'd stay up as late as I could and sleep in the room as few hours as possible.
After my harrowing encounter, I decided that some self-indulgence and TLC was in order. I strolled across the street to the general store to see what treasures I could mine from its meager inventory. I was on a quest to find some tasties to pair with the dessert wine I'd bought just at the winery in Blenheim. Some patés or something to contrast with the wine's sweet flavor (I'm a huge fan of opposing flavors). Lo and behold, this miner struck gold. This was like a woman being forced to attend a dinner party while out on a hiking trip and finding a store selling Manolos and Versace. I bought some patés, crackers, cheeses, and plastic cups and headed back to some picnic tables outside the hotel. I rounded up some of the gang and we held a pre-dinner picnic.
Cost of a bottle of dessert wine? NZ$40
Cost of paté, crackers, and cheese? NZ$50
Cost of a pleasant meal with friends before a night in a stinky hotel
room? Priceless
After dinner, a huge group gathered around the television in the hotel lobby to watch a much ballyhooed interview with Jacko on TV. Supposedly the interviewer had pressed Jacko on why he dangled a young infant over a balcony, and during some downtime Jacko had let down his guard and made some shocking admissions. I have no idea why anyone is still fascinated with the nut and shot pool instead.
Later, in the hotel bar, we shot yet more pool and drank heavily. Let the records show that I whupped Corinna's ass in air hockey. Then again, she had never really played and hadn't learned that the key scoring shot is the bank shot off the side wall. I quite while I was ahead.
Everyone retired to their fresh-smelling rooms (the girls got nice large rooms with sinks and bunk beds; sometimes it's good to be a woman) while I stood outside the door to my room, trying to summon the courage to enter. Somehow my roommate Jun had already passed out and was sleeping like a baby. I couldn't do it so instead I ran in, grabbed my journal, and dashed back out to write for an hour or two in the hallway. Some of the others discovered that the bar was having a sale on shots, so a few stalwart mates joined me for some shots and conversation.
Eventually I did retire to my room for the night, but I've blocked it from my memory.
Day 13: Lucky thirteen
Despite only a few hours of sleep, I woke bright-eyed and hopeful. It was so dark outside I couldn't tell if the skies were clear or not. I was first to the cafeteria for breakfast and none of the hot dishes had even been brought out. After breakfast we loaded our bags, and by then it was light enough to see that the sky was still a bit overcast. We sat around the picnic tables moping. If the weather didn't break our backup plan was a hike to the base of the glacier. That sounded exactly about 1/100's as exciting as the heli-hike.
And then, like manna from heaven, the clouds broke and the sun poked through. Johnny broke the good news: the heli-hike was on. Those of us who'd selected the heli-hike rushed to pay for the trip, and a bus whisked us off to the helipad. There we were given heavy-duty socks and hiking boots and crampons. I had been on a helicopter once before in my life, but it was so long ago I'd forgotten what it was like.
We were taken up in groups of five. Helicopters are a blast. As we lifted off from the ground and picked up speed while heading up into the valley above, I could hear strains from John William's Jurassic Park in my mind's ear.
Once we had all made it up to the dropoff point, we donned our crampons and grabbed our walking sticks. My biggest challenge was dealing with the free-moving weights that was my gear: camera bag hanging over my shoulder, camera around my neck, walking stick in one hand.
This
was my first time donning crampons and my first time hiking a glacier,
and it was awesome. Our guide, an older gentleman, led us up the glacier
like Gandalf leading the Fellowship. The sun hadn't broken yet, but the
weather was pleasant and the ice stretching up to the top of the mountain
offered a great backdrop for our geology lesson. These would be the first
of many glaciers I encountered during my sabbatical travels, and by the
time I returned to the United States I felt like an expert.
Our
luck was just beginning. Partway up the mountain, the sun broke over the
top of the mountaintop to the East, the direction we were headed. It lit
up the entire glacier and mountainside, bringing out the vivid blue of
the ice, exposing its various crevasses and caves. Unfortunately, I was
so excited I forgot to add one stop of exposure to all my shots and the
meter in the camera was fooled by the white ice into underexposing all
my shots. Amateur mistake, but not the worst one I'd make that day.
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We scampered around like school children on a playground, and you'd think we'd never seen ice before. Next to ice hockey and snowball fights, hiking glaciers is as much fun as anyone should have with what is essentially frozen water.
Our luck was meted out with absolute precision: just as the helicopter picked us up for the flight back down the valley, the skies clouded over and a light rain began to fall. Perhaps that was too much luck for one day, because as I got out of the helicopter, I dropped my camera on the pavement, and both of the filters on my lens cracked. Why had I taken the strap off from around my neck? Dope. If I hadn't had the filters on, though, I would have probably shattered my lens and that would have been tragic considering I was only partway into my journey, so I counted my blessings.
The day was not even half over and already we were buzzing over our
morning's activities. Back on the bus, we headed off towards Queenstown.
Along the
way, we had more glorious views as we climbed the Haast
Pass on the way to Wanaka and the Southern Lakes. The highway up
and over the Haast Pass was misty, mossy, offered glorious views of the
peaks
on either side of the road. It's a must-drive for anyone touring the
West Coast of the south island. Along the way, one can stop at Thunder
Creek Falls, as we did, for a scenic break.
The bus ride down was also one of the more crucial activity selection
days of the trip. Queenstown is the mecca of adventure sports in New Zealand,
and today we had to make our fateful choices on how we'd juice up on adrenaline
while there for a few days.
Those who had not bungied before were faced with the intimidating choice--to bungy or not to bungy? Once that decision was done, the choice was about how many bungy jumps to do.
For me, the choice was simple. I was signing up for the Thrillogy, the three jump combo package that offered all three of the A.J. Hackett bungy jumps in the Queenstown area. I also signed up for a half-day Lord of the Rings tour, and Johnny and Urban and I made plans to try and squeeze in a mountain biking excursion as well. I wanted to fit in more--parapenting, jet boating, jet skiing, etc., but given the schedule Ange advised me to play it by ear.
The two crazy Norwegians, Kjetil and Olav, made me proud by putting their names on the Thrillogy dotted line, and then Laura stunned me by signing up for the 3-pack as well. So there we had it, a fellowship of four.
We drove into Queenstown just before dinnertime, and I got a shot of adrenaline just passing through the bustling downtown area. Queenstown is like Aspen about 10 to 15 years before it was overrun. The variety of restaurants and activities it offers makes it the perfect active traveler's resort.
We checked into the Rydges Lakeland Resort (after the previous night's accomodations at Fox, the Rydges was like the Four Seasons), along the Northeastern edge of Lake Wakatipu. I don't remember much from that night other than the fact that it ended earlier than I wanted it to. I ran into Ali and Susan at the hotel bar at one point, and they were the last two left standing and it was only 11pm or so. Everyone was too nervous and wound up about the next day's crazy activities to drink the night away.
Next: Three men and a lady, three jumps and some bumps
The lodging in the towns of Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers is extremely limited and hard to secure given the number of tour groups passing through. I'd book in advance to get anything decent. You could stay outside of those towns, but don't. You want to be right in town to seize any sudden weather breaks to hop a helicopter up to the glaciers. It's a blast and well worth the meager and over-priced accomodations you'll have to put up with in town.
If you've never hiked on a glacier, I unhesitatingly recommend doing a heli-hike of Fox or Franz Josef Glacier. We hiked the Fox Glacier with Alpine Guides. The half-day helihike cost NZ$235. Those who wish for a lower cost option can opt for half or full-day hikes which don't get as high but do bring you to the glacier itself. Those of you who head to Franz Josef also have a similar menu of options. Of course, whether or not you do the heli-hike or not depends heavily on the weather--don't get your hopes too high if you can only stay a day or two in town--it rains 200 days out of the year.
If you're driving the South Island, I highly recommend the drive over the Haast Pass. It's unbelievably gorgeous. It's the best way to head from the glaciers towards Wanaka and then Queenstown, though it is a long drive.