Day 10 - Fox Glacier, South Westland New Zealand

Hi there - So we were able to get internet, so I could blog about our facinating day today!  Everything "they" say about New Zealand is true - it is an absolutely beautiful country.  We have seen things today that looked like paintings caught in a postcard, Mother Nature at it's best. 

We caught the TransAlpine Train this morning at 8:15.  The TranzAlpine scenic train journey travels between Christchurch and Greymouth, from one coast of New Zealand's South island to the other. From our carriage, we saw the Canterbury Plains and farmland, followed by the spectacular gorges and river valleys of the Waimakariri River. We than ventured into the Southern Alps before descending through lush beech rain forest to the West Coast town of Greymouth.  The ride was roughly 4.5 hours long.  There are 19 tunnels, and 4 viaducts, the highest being the Staircase standing at 73 metres.


The most famous stop was Arthur's Pass.  Arthur's Pass is the highest pass over the Southern Alps. Long before surveyor Arthur Dudley Dobson found his way over the pass in 1864, it was known to Maori hunting parties as a route between east and west.  When Arthur first encounted the Otira Gourge, the pass was impassable - he had to leave his horse at the top and lower his dog on a rope!!!  The eastern side of Arthur's Pass National Park is characterised by wide, shingle-filled riverbeds and vast beech forests. The western side of the park, where wet weather is more common than dry, has deeply gorged rivers flowing through dense rainforest. Down the middle of 'the great divide' is an alpine dreamland of snow-covered peaks, glaciers and scree slopes.

The TranzAlpine is an ideal journey, we had a tabled group seating, which allowed us to visit with the other tourits.  And coincidentally, guess who we sat across from.....Mr. and Mrs. GILES from London!!!!  Can you believe that??  They were equally suprised by this unlikely meeting.  They were the cutest couple, both 85 years old, doing their "last life journey" together.  They had just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and told us so many great stories of times gone by.  From stories about their time living in Cyprus and Singafore with the English Air Force to Mr Giles (Ted) time fighting in WW2, their stories were quite amazing.  They were such a lovely couple.  To make the coincedence even more strange, they also lived in a small village outside of London called Chalfont St Giles!!!  Yes, they live in a village named after the Giles family!  The other villagers call her the Lady of Giles.  Very, very sweet people.  We told them that we plan to visit and have tea with them someday soon.  It was such an experience to see such a wonderful couple, 85 years old and married 60 years enjoying their Holiday.  It was very inspiring and definitely put life into perspective.  They were just as happy to hear our future travel plans, as we were to hear theirs.  They told us to enjoy our long life journey together, as it all comes to an end so fast.  We really loved meeting them. 

Once we departed the train, we bid Ted and Joyce farewell, and headed on our way south to Fox Glacier.  The ride was roughly 2.5 hours through the winding roads of the Southern Alps.  The towns here are so small that if you blink, you will miss them. 

We finally made it to Fox Glacier, which has 5 restaurants and 10 logdges/hotels/B&B's.  We are staying at Te Weheka, which is a small B&B/Lodge.  Each room is named after someone who was important to Te Weheka.  Our room, room 109, was named after Mary Kerr, who was the daughter of the original owners.  This lodge started as a hostel before turning into a hotel some years back.  Mary Kerr was very hands on, she was the cook, the maid, and the hostess to hundreds of visitors over her 37 years of ownership.  She had an unfortunate accident that took her life early, but she left behind a spirit of hospitality that helped to build  Fox Glacier and the entire West Coast tourism industry.  In fact, in 1986 she received the regional award for her contributions.  Her neice said, "Her passing brings to an end a spirit of hospitality founded not so much on the making of money as on a way of life."  Too bad we never go to meet her, she built and kept a beautiful lodge.

Like I said above, Fox Glacier is a tiny town.  You can literally walk it in under 5 minutes....yes, Jean, it is smaller than Eagle!!!  Can you believe that?!  =)

We grabbed a snack at the Cook Saddle Cafe and Saloon - such a cool place, check out the pics on picasa.  Before heading out to Queenstown tomorrow, we will be hiking the Glaciers here.  We couldn't resist the opportunity to take advantage of this once in a lifetime experience.  We signed up for the half day fox trot tomorrow.  We were contemplating the Flying Fox, but since this is via helicopter, it can be cancelled at any minute due to weather conditions.  Since we are so limited in time we didn't want to risk this.

The Fox Trot is a great eco-adventure and full of variety and interest. We will be fitted with leather boots and other equipment, before boarding one of the buses for the short drive through the rainforest and into the glacial valley. Our guide will then lead us on a walk beside the river bed to a track through ferns and regenerating temperate rainforest. From the high track we will see the views of the glacier and its upper and lower icefalls, which we will then track down the edges of the ice. At this point we will be outfitted with instep crampons specially designed for these ice conditions.  This route will take us onto the ice and ice ridges that will lead us into the middle of the glacier for spectacular views of the icefall and lower glacier.
We will spend at least one hour on the ice and, depending on glacial conditions, we will return to the bus using the same track.

As you can tell, we are VERY excited for this!  We were laughing about how funny this trip has been.  We started off in Cairns, a laid back beach town (90 degrees and 95% humidity), then to Sydney, a large city with varying temeratures (the first days were 85 and 45% humidy, while the last 2 days were 65 degrees), we are now in New Zealand, a country inspired by the environment, VERY eco-friendly and extremely interested in adventure.  They even have recycling bins along all their city streets!  We went from beach to ice glacier hiking...how interesting is that?

We are off to dinner here in a few minutes, http://www.lakematheson.com/. We are travelling a short distance by car to dine at Matheson Cafe on Lake Matheson.  The views are supposed to be spectacular!

Till tomorrow.  It will be a late blog, if any, we will not arrive in Queenstown till around 9PM New Zealand time.

Cheerio.
J&J