Garden Ramblings: OMG... Glaciers!

But, let's start at the beginning of an amazing two days!!

Sunday morning we woke up in Hokitika to blue skies and sunshine! It's been clear everyday that we've been on the south island, but it starts off gray, and clears as the day goes on. Not Sunday! Sunday there wasn't a cloud in the sky!

As we got ready and were having breakfast, we were listening to hundreds of motorcycles heading out on the open road!

Before we left town, we had a stop to make - at the Sock World & Sock Knitting Machine Museum. We had passed it after dinner the night before, and who wouldn't want to see a sock knitting machine museum?? It was amazing! The woman who owns the shop builds these sock knitting machines and sells and delivers them all over the world, including San Jose! Apparently the first sock knitting machine was invented in the mid-1500's. The machines are fairly expensive - you'd have to have a really big family to make it worthwhile, but they are fascinating to see.

We also took another picture of the clock tower in Hokitika, because we hadn't realized that there were mountains around it!

After that, we hit the road! Our final destination on Sunday night was Fox Glacier, which wasn't too far, so we had plenty of time to stop at every wide spot in the road, and some that weren't very wide as well.

The west coast of the South Island experienced a gold rush in the mid-1800's similar to San Francisco. Many of the towns along the west coast had been booming gold mining towns, now they are smaller, and farming is the main industry there. That, and tourism.

We took lots of pictures, and were very excited to reach Franz Josef glacier, the first of the two glaciers on the way to Queenstown. It was very warm there, and we took water along as we began our hike into the terminus of the glacier. We opted NOT to do the walk on the glacier. It was quite a jaunt out - it was an hour each way - over where the glacier had once been, and what is now a flood plain during the spring. Lots and lots of rock!

The glacier was amazing! We watched the people climbing up - and down! - the glacier - very scary! I was disappointed that the glacier was "dirty", but I'm sure that when the rain and snow starts, they will be nice and clean! But what a fabulous experience!! The mountains around the glacier and the waterfalls from melting snow/ice were wonderful!

After Franz Josef, we made the hour drive to the Fox Glacier. We checked into our motel at the Fox Glacier village, got the car unloaded, and took showers to wash off all the dust from the walk to the glacier! Then we headed out to Lake Matheson, the "mirror lake", to view the reflections of the Mount Cook and Mount Tasman at sunset, and to have dinner at the Lake Matheson Cafe.

We walked about 1/3 of the way around the lake, and Lee got some great shots, before our dinner reservations. We ate outside, with a view of the mountains, and it just doesn't get any better than that!! Dinner was delicious, the scenery was breath taking, and it was quiet and peaceful - wonderful!

Our plan for Monday was to visit Fox Glacier, then tiki tour down the road to Haast. When we were checking out they asked where our next step was going to be, and we said Haast. She got a funny look on her face, and said "there's nothing there! I wouldn't stay in Haast!" There was another woman in the office to check out, and she said "I was through Haast yesterday - there's nothing there!". So, we decided to take their advice and push on to Wanaka for Monday night.

That changed our travel plans a bit. Since we were going to have a long drive on Monday, we limited our tiki touring. We started the day by visiting Lake Matheson again, and this time we walked all the way around the lake. It was just beautiful, and there were several viewing places along the way, and we took millions of pictures of the mountains and lake! After our walk, we stopped at the Cafe for a latte, then headed off to Fox Glacier - which was just down the road.

Fox Glacier has the terminus that is closest to the sea. It was only about a 30 minute walk in, and the glacier was just beautiful. In fact, I liked it the best of the two glaciers. Again, we got lots of pictures!

Then we got on the road to Wanaka! We had a quick lunch stop along the way, and a couple of stretch stops, but we were on the road for about 5 hours. It was a gorgeous drive - the scenery was breath taking! But the roads are narrow and winding, which keeps you from going very fast. And there are many, many one-way bridges! So, you can't drive on "auto pilot" around here. Lee has done an amazing job of driving here - on the wrong side of the road!

We got into Wanaka at 7:00 pm, and what a beautiful place!! It's a very adorable little town that's tucked around the end of Lake Wanaka - with a real vacation feel to it. It felt SO good to get out of the car - once we were all unloaded, we opened a bottle of wine and sat outside with a glass each! Dinner Monday night was a very yummy pizza, within walking distance to our motel!

We decided that we would spend two nights at Wanaka, since we were only an hour and a half from Queenstown, and we didn't need to be there till Wednesday. So, Tuesday was our "down" day, and we really enjoyed hanging out in Wanaka.

We have been totally blessed with beautiful weather! Both Monday and Tuesday mornings dawned bright and sunny as well!

The Hokitika clock tower - with mountains in the back ground!

This is a sock knitting machine!

Here's a sock being knitted. You can knit socks continuously - there's a stitch put in between each sock that allows you to separate them, and finish off the toe. The owner demonstrated by releasing the bottom sock on a row of about 6 of them. Fascinating!

We stopped in Ross - an old gold mining town!

Dancing girls!

We stopped here - a very strange place, indeed! They serve Possum Pie! Actually, they can't sell it to you, but if you make a donation, they'll give you one! We had a scone, instead!

This is an insect that I have become all too familiar (Lee warned me!). This is a sand fly. They are about a third of the size of a mosquito, it hurts when they bite you, and it itches for days! Nasty things!

This is a pet deer at the Bushman's center. He loves banana peels!

We stopped at the Waitaha River for pictures. We could see the mountains in the background as we were driving.

There's the mountains!

Another beautiful scene

Frans Josef glacier!! You can see that it's quite a way from the actual trail.

Some of the waterfalls along the mountains

The glacier, close up. The mountain-like structure on the right is actually glacial ice - just very dirty!

See the people coming back down the face of the glacier? See why we didn't do that??

Phew! They made it!

Amazing plants! This little guy was blooming among the rocks.

This picture was taken at Lake Matheson before dinner. Note the pukeko in the foreground!

"Mirror lake"! (Lake Matheson) The reflections are amazing!

We couldn't get enough of these mountains. Mount Cook is on the right, and Mount Tasman is on the left.

This was our view as we ate dinner!

Morning on Lake Matheson

Fox Glacier!

The walk in to Fox Glacier

This shows the sheer walls of the mountains that had been carved by the glacier, and the flood plain that is very deep in the spring.

Fox Glacier.

Lake Hawea, just outside of Wanaka

Here's a sign for the one-way bridge - you can see that we have the red arrow, which means that we don't have the right of way. We have to wait till the bridge is clear to cross.