Dashing around the South Island

Due to lack of time and generally extending my stay in almost every other country, I am now quite pushed for time in New Zealand. As ever, I am trying to get that elusive balance between seeing things I want to see and not becoming too exhausted. I have no idea if I am managing it, but I am seeing some cool things that I very much wanted to see. This means that this blog will suddenly seem even more crammed but actually amidst all that is described is a significant amount of time on buses. Normally with some pretty spectacular views, most of which I am missing by being asleep.

Having made the mental journey to Milford Sound and back I spent a bit longer in Queenstown. I actually liked it more than I expected to, it's not that busy and is very beautifully placed with lake and mountains etc. I also got to see a kiwi here, which was actually much more fun than I expected. It wasn't in the wild or anything exciting, I visited the Wildlife Conservation place and saw, amongst other things, four kiwis in the nocturnal house. They are much bigger than I thought, move much more quickly and have whiskers! I think I might have picked them for my national icon... Or maybe the absolutely huge wood pigeons, of which I have now seen a lot in the mountains.

You shouldn't take photos of kiwi, they live in the dark and are shy and easily startled!

Huge

I then went to Arrowtown, which is a small town close to Queenstown that grew up as a gold mining area. It is slightly too quaint and twee but quite interesting to see. The Maori generally seem to have had less settlements in the South Island than the north, but they did hunt and look for greenstone in the south. They also named everything and thought the Mountains were sacred. They did know about gold, but didn't think it was valuable as it was so soft, but then took advantage of Europeans finding it valuable when they showed up. There was also a huge Chinese community here, as they were invited from Victoria, Australia to come and mine once mining gold picked up on the West Coast and there weren't enough people in Arrowtown. Quite striking that it was a rough life all round though, I wouldn't have enjoyed being a pioneer here so much...

Arrowtown

From Queenstown I made another epic bus journey to Fox Glacier. Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers are unusual in that they come down not only close to sea level but also into temperate rainforest. Franz has been receding for a long time and is now only accessible by helicopter, yet for some reason inexplicably more popular, Fox was actually at its lowest in 1983, grew a lot until 1998 and is now receding again. I did an all day walk which involved walking up to the glacier through the temperate rainforest, donning crampons (!) and walking around very close to crevasses and the like, dropping rocks down small holes to hear them falling for a good 6 seconds and crawling through tunnels posing for pictures. It was quite hard work but really good fun. There was a good group of us and a good guide who kept telling horror stories really quite casually (see http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/10/27/spectacular-rockfall-video-on-the-franz-josef-glacier-a-lucky-escape-for-a-tour-party/). He showed us the skull of a tahr, which I have just had to google to check actually exists, I thought it might be one those 'a haggis is a three legged animal in Scotland' stories...

Fox Glacier

From Fox, where it was really quite chilly and merino layers were worn, I went on to Wanaka. Wanaka is a little like Queenstown only smaller, more relaxed and, today, 26 degrees. Having somehow managed plus 40 degrees I am now inside because it's too hot outside! Very beautiful though and also a pretty spectacular journey. If anyone is planning a trip, I wish I had camped at Lake Hawea, very deserted, beautiful clear water and generally an amazing location!

Lake Wanaka

Wanaka

Lake Hawea