Sharon’s Blog

After lunch in Whataroa, and the virtual climb, Karsten wanted us to try riding on a small, unpaved road he’d heard about, but hadn’t been down before. Hwy 6, which is the main road up the west coast does a get a little busy in spots, there’s not much shoulder sometimes, and thus not the most fun to ride on. Karsten wanted us to try this, which runs along the coast for a few miles. We all piled out of the van…and headed out, except for the Iron Woman – she decided she wanted chocolate and a rest. It was a good call on Karsten’s part.

There was a horse in the pasture where the road started. And the ride was bounded on the other side by more cows, that also clustered together when we stood around looking for them. Catherine did eventually join us, on a quick sprint. I can’t tell you why…I promised – just know that if I could, it’d be a great story. But when she zoomed past me, I thought for a minute she was showing off – and was a little annoyed. Catherine’s really not like that though…had a great time with her on the trip.

I know Karsten was hoping we’d get to see the sea while we were riding, but I only caught a quick glimpse. There were nice pastures, a pond, farmland along the way, but there was this large burm bordering the road between it and the ocean pretty much the whole way. Kept seeing signs warning about the school bus, and when we got to the end of the road, we saw the school “bus” pull in – more a van than a bus. We all hung out at the end, waiting for Karsten to bring the van back…enjoying the notion that we were once again herding cows. The rain was starting…little did we know that this was the last riding we were going to get in on the trip.

When we landed in town, it was – of course – time to eat again. There was little park with a playground, picnic tables, and a restroom in the center of town – which by west coast standards, was pretty close to a major metropolis. We could get a latte across the street. The general store there had a little restaurant attached, that was doing a bustling business. At one point, while sitting at our lunch table, we noticed a pair of white wellis parked at the door (very considerate, I suppose – not traipsing in whatever might be on the bottom of them into the shop). I went to get a photo of the standalone wellis, but by the time I got a hold of my camera and was preparing to take the picture, the owner (a woman) came out and gave me a strange look as she snatched them up.

While Karsten and Jenny were laying out the spread, I went to visit the local art gallery, Kotuku. There’s a white heron sanctuary nearby, which is where the gallery takes its name from and the town displays on its flags. The owner of the gallery, a Maori man, and his daughter were there – really nice and helpful people. It had some beautiful things – jade, whalebone, paua, and I of course did some shopping. This is where I got my carved whalebone with paua inset koru necklace that I’ve worn almost every day since getting home – the bone has been tested and is supposed to be over 3400 years old. I also bought some pieces for decorating my guest bedroom, which is destined to have a Polynesian/South Pacific theme now…some items coming from Tahiti, some from NZ.

After lunch, while cleaning up, Imogen, Catherine and I had some fun playing with a little girl who was visiting the playground. Brought back memories of spinning around at Beach 2 in White Meadow Lake, where I grew up. I remember, as kids, going to that playground and trying to get someone to spin the “merry go round” as fast as possible and see how long we could hang on. I could tell similar memories were going through my companions heads as they spun the little girl ’round and ’round. Not sure who was laughing harder – the little girl in the bright pink fleece coat or us. After lunch, it was time for more cycling, but only after the virtual ride over Mt. Hercules – which everyone felt was better done in the van.

On the way to Okarito, we passed this kiwi crossing sign. No kiwi birds, though. But, on the way back we had our kiwi girl and kiwi fruits…so now we have kiwi cubed. Jenny, who’ve I written about before, was one of our awesome guides from Adventure South. Always fun, always helpful, always knowledgable, and just an all around amazing person. I told her I hope she’ll come visit me in the States when she visits and I meant it. Karsten too. We were really lucky to have such great leaders on our trip.

We drove back out to the main road to continue our ride to Whataroa (pronounced “fataroa”), where we’d be stopping for lunch. It was a nice, easy ride past lots of beef filled pastures. More amazing scenery. Actually, I think Lake Wahapo kicked off this stretch of ride, rather than being on the last one. It had this cluster of dead looking trees towards the one end of that I didn’t stop to photograph, but they were eerie looking. Did find a post card of them in town though – for my physical scrapbook – that maybe I’ll start if I ever finish the blog postings of the trip .

The campground in Okarito had this campground with this cute little house…inside were couches, chairs, and tables for eating. There were nice paintings on the ceilings – reflective of the terrain and culture. And there was a ton of information available about happenings in the “area” – much of the west coast. There was an old fashion washing bin with an attached windup wringer outside that Dave found. I have blackmail photos if you need them, Helen!

Anyway – it was a comfy spot for morning tea, and seemed like it would be a nice place to camp out – if you do that sort of thing. It’s run by the Okarito Community Association.

Before heading out that morning, I hit the internet kiosk at the backpacker place next to our motel. It was a fun atmosphere. Had to check on the food company deal in the UK, but it was when I received the email from my dad the confirmed the world really is very, very small. When Catherine and I were talking earlier in the trip I had mentioned my father’s from Ireland. The usual, “What part?” question came up and I gave my usual reply, “This very obscure town in the west called Ballahaderreen.” She answered, “I don’t know many Irish people, but I think the one woman I know pretty well is from there.” We keep talking and establish that this woman’s father’s name was Victor Moran. So I had sent Dad an email asking if he knew him. Turns out he was his dentist until my Dad left in the late 50s to come to the States. If my old boss, Jeff, ever reads this, he won’t be at all surprised. Seems to happen to me all the time.

Anyway – the day was cold and overcast again, but there was no rain. So we all bundled up and headed out of Franz Josef for a nice ride to the town of Okarita, which is on the coast. Just outside of town, Malcolm was stopped with his camera out. If you looked back, you could get a pretty clear view of the glacier coming down between the mountains. The whole glacier thing is just very cool, but you’ve read enough about that already. We kept riding…past a reindeer farm. So strange to see groups of those guys looking out at you from behind fences. The riding was nice…streams and more lakes alongside almost the whole way, including Mapourika and Wahapo. I think this is where, if I hadn’t mentioned it already, we were all starting to get a bit jaded about the scenery and deepening that yet another mountain, yet another lake attitude. By the end of the trip, lakes, waterfalls, snow capped peaks around the next corner were just expected.

We had to turn off the main road to go to Okarito. Long downhill, which always scares me because it means you have to go up again. There was this river flowing alongside for a long time, then we made a hairpin turn over a bridge that led up a hill. At least it was one that I could get up. After that I rode for awhile – lots of campers coming by – through the woods. Then you came to this estuary leading out to the ocean. Looked like you could do some nice kayaking through there. Kept riding and eventually came to town. Booming metropolis – even had an airstrip with this sign warning me I might get hit by a plane landing or taking off as I rode across to see the beach and more of the wild Tasman Sea. Beach was that dark grey sand again. There were some cool looking houses perched off the hills up the beach – pretty isolated. Since it was pretty windy, I turned back to the campground where we were meeting up for coffee…I mean morning tea.

Both Franz and Fox are basically in existence for glacier tourists. Not much there but tourist shops, motels. hostels, internet places with the coin kiosks, and a few restaurants. The Blue Ice Cafe had an upstairs bar advertising happy hour from 9-10, but we skipped it because we figured there were no locals there as interesting as the ones in Haast.

We were staying at the A1 Rata Grove Motel, my least favorite of all of them in terms of what the rooms were actually like. The guy who ran the place was really nice though. The others were mentioning that they only got one towel apiece in their rooms, but I always had my two, because I was staying alone (one for my body, one for my head). But here, they knew there was just me and there was only one towel. I asked the man who ran the place if I could have another and it appeared in my room before I even noticed. Catherine said her room was huge and cavernous, but the place just had a little run down feel, especially after our neat little Scandavian design rooms the night before. I don’t think there’s much to choose from there though.

We ate dinner at the Landing (pictured, although from another website, not my camera) that night. It had an outdoor pool table, which struck me as strange with all the rain they get over there. They must have a quick tarp or something to throw over it, because you weren’t going to move it anywhere quickly. The portions of food were as huge as Catherine’s room. Jenny and Karsten joined us that night, which was fun. The only problem was that Dave and I ordered the same thing, but prepared differently. The order went in as one with both preparations noted. So – his food never came. We were all mostly done with dinner before Dave’s came. At the end of the evening when we figured out the tab, we had a mystery guest who paid and too much money. When I got a look at things, I figured out that for the same reason Dave’s dinner didn’t show, Dave’s dinner didn’t get charged to the table.

Despite the large portions, everyone wanted dessert. Or, “pudding” as I was corrected by my friends. Now to me, pudding is a subset of the entire dessert range. But no, I was told that puddings have been being made forever, so that’s what we were choosing from – “puddings.” All I know was that I ordered the Pavlova, with fruits and ice cream, wasn’t anywhere near as good as the chocolate Pavlova I made for Sunday Night Dinner a few weeks before. It was more like a giant marshmallow.

After dinner headed back to the hotel. Everyone was a little tired and we were planning to be up early, hopeful for a day of riding ahead…

Here’s our fearless leader – one handed and looking backwards at the crest of the second saddle. As you can tell, I’m no longer on a bike, but back on two feet taking pictures. I made it about 2/3rd of the way up the first hill before I collapsed. Jenny drove me to the top and insisted I ride down. Think that was worse than going up…I wanted a seat belt, especially when I came to the hairpin turn preceeded by a diagonal cattle grate and a car coming in the opposite direction. I suppose it could have been worse – cars could have been passing in both directions. Made it around the corner alive, but then made the mistake of looking out – big, very deep, vista. Kept my eyes on the road only the rest of the way down. Waited there because I wasn’t going to try the second saddle – too long and too steep for me at that point. Helen and I wanted to try the third, but Jenny couldn’t find a place to pull over to get the bikes down until the top. So Helen and I rode down and into Franz Josef together.

I know you’re tired of reading about this thing, but you have to take one last look. It really was the highlight of the trip, getting up there. Did you notice all the waterfalls coming down the sides of the mountains? The different textures of ice? The snow capped moutaintops peeking out of the clouds? The color of the blue sky? If it had turned out to be too cloudy, and we hadn’t gone up on the chopper, I wouldn’t have ever realized what I missed. But it was so incredible, it’s one of the things I want to bring the princess back to see. It’s a must do if you can. I hear Argentina has a similar glacier, coming down into temperate climates, but that and NZ are the only two countries that do. Anyway – I’m glad Jenny’s reaction when asked if whether going up was worth it was so from the gut and positive, or I might have given it a miss.

Imogen, because she gets vertigo, Helen and Dave did. They went to Gillespies Beach instead, which Helen said was the most glittery beach she’d ever seen. The sand was apparently coarse, but she said when you picked it up it had all these glittery specks in it. Dave showed me some photos in his camera later, and they were great. Maybe he can mail me one sometime and I can post it for other NZ enthusiasts at some who might want to have a glance.

When we got down, I was starving. We were eating at the cafe attached to the Alpine Guides place, the Hobnail Cafe. They had these veggie stuffed baked potatoes – corn, carrots, sunflower seeds – and a leek soup that wasn’t served in a turreen, but was so rich that the smaller portion was sort of like getting condensed turreen sized soup. Dave and Helen bought a snack/energy bar there for dessert, which looked really good. More on those later, because I was too full afterwards to have any sweets.

At this point it was finally time to leave Fox and do yet another hilly ride. I wasn’t optimistic, as we had had a full morning roaming around on the mountain, but I was going to try…

While it turned to be a bright sunny day for us up there on Fox Glacier, the clouds never really go away on the west. Or at least they didn’t while I was there. We were just lucky that day and they opened up a path from the top of the glacier all the way down to the sea, so we could get up. But the clouds kept shifting around the mountains, alternatively revealing and hiding different things. Right before we got on the chopper to go back down, they came off the north side, revealing these mini-mountains on the hill. Really cool, mysterious looking creatures.

There wasn’t much life up there. Much higher up is a cabin where you can take trips up and spend the night. Jenny had been up to it for her ice survival course. Said it gets rats – so like everywhere, it seems the rats and the cockroaches can survive the elements. She had to be dropped deep into a crevasse (we didn’t see anything you felt like you could fall in and never get out, but I think this one had that feel) and then be pulled up by her partner. Right before you get pulled up, I guess they have to let the ropes go and drop you a little deeper. While Jenny was waiting for that moment, she said she was fairly convinced that she was just going to fall all the way in. That split second and a few feet sounded as though it felt like being dropped miles into the earth. The one form of life we did see up there was some type of midge. They apparently live on some algae that develops on the ice.

Oh yeah – remembered something else about arches. They are sometimes formed by the small debris that gets dragged down the glacier. The rocks, because they are black, absorb the heat from the sun, which causes the ice to start to melt and then the water forms the caves and arches. Can’t remember what kind that’s called though…sorry.