Now that we've overviewed our travels on the South Island, we thought we'd take the time to go back and dig a little deeper into some of the places we visited and things we saw. The central part of the South Island is known for its glaciers, so we traveled by a number of glacial lakes. We mentioned Lake Tekapo, where the wildflowers were gorgeously in bloom:
The water was magnificent turquoise, but even little M noticed how hazy the water was from the "rock flour" produced by the friction of the glaciers. (Please notice, for future reference below how ultraclear the mountains are in the far background of this picture. This is the direction of Mount Cook and we saw the clarity of the sky and decided to head that way...more on that to come.)
Lake Tekapo has a small historic church, Church of Christ the Shepherd, built in the 19th century that abuts the lake. Most pictures of Lake Tekapo include the church, so needless to say, it was teeny tiny and quite the tourist magnet, although we were lucky to get this picture that makes it look deserted:
L had more pressing things to deal with than the church. As has been demonstrated publicly most recently at our Carleton reunion this past summer, L and little M love to play "quarry" and bang rocks together, split them, and bang some more. Lake Tekapo gave ample opportunity for this activity to occur (we call L in his fleece engaged in this activity "camouflaged quarrying"):
After Lake Tekapo, we thought we'd head towards Mount Cook. First we decided to have some lunch, so we stopped at the next glacial lake, Lake Pukaki, for our meal. Nothing like being able to eat out of the back of the van. It was windy and slightly cold, but when the sun shone through the clouds, we were almost comfortable.
After lunch we started up the long winding highway at the edge of Lake Pukaki. It was our first really winding highway of the trip and the wind was fierce (so it was winding and windy...) that the van kept listing to the edge of the road, to the middle of the road, every which way. Luckily the road (all of them on the South Island were two lanes...or maybe 1.5 at times) was fairly deserted. If we had traveled this road at the end of our trip, I believe we would not have found it winding, just windy. There were much more winding roads to come. Anyway, as we drove, we realized that the weather ahead may potentially be changing. (Note the clouds coming in...)
Unfortunately, by the time we made it to Aoraki-Mt. Cook Village we could barely see our hands in front of our face. Mt. Cook or huge brick wall? Who's to know? It was foggy raining and cold. Aoraki (meaning "cloud piercer" in Maori) was the training ground for Sir Edmund Hilary for his ascent up Mount Everest and is known for its beauty. Too bad we could see squat. As we had learned in Auckland--don't let rain stop you--we decided to take campervan down the 8 km gravel road to a short tramp to see the Tasman Glacier, renowned as the longest known glacier at 18 km. We thought it would be great to stretch the legs a bit after the drive. However, after the 8 km of potholes and more importantly the SLEET and FREEZING RAIN that met us at the trailhead, we decided against the hike. It just wasn't our day for this. In Te Anau we did pick up necessary long wool underwear (yes, NZ Summer!!...and this we'll discuss more in another post), but we did not have the necessary gear for even an hour tramp in those conditions. We turned around and headed out...
It wasn't until 5 days later when we had the chance to see a glacier up close. So we're skipping forward chronologically a bit. On the western shore of the South Island there are several glaciers. We stopped at the Fox Glacier and visited the information center at the Franz Josef glacier.
The morning of our trip to the Fox was also rainy and cold. But this time we were ready (and at least there wasn't freezing rain!) The Fox Glacier is accessible without a guided tour, although you can only get about 100 yards near it and we thought this the best option with our children. We were walking directly down the center of a glacier valley. The pictures don't really do justice to the scale of the cliffs or size of the rocks.
Look for the hiker in red a bit right of center in this picture, on top of the moraine.
The boulders were huge and rugged, the cliffs on either side steep. L walked the whole way (the guidebook said "30 minutes," the trailhead said "1 hour" and our hike was about 1.75). L, however was a trooper, walking the whole way and M walked one whole way and fearlessly crossed all of the streams (and she wants me to point out--it was easy).
The main event was, obviously, the Fox Glacier. What is amazing is that these glaciers actually exist in such a temperate climate and a rainforest (despite our long underwear, we still are on the South Pacific island!). They are hardly above sea level (only about 1,000 feet) and they are a short distance from the ocean (12 km). Again, it is impossible to show the scale. R and little M are about 100 yards from the glacier's edge.
The Franz Josef glacier is only accessible by guided tour and our kids were cold and satisfied with the one glacier they saw. However, we were each quick to point out any water body we passed over that was glacier-fed and recognizable because of the turquoise color.
On a cloudy sunday we went down to the Wynart Quarter for the Seafood Festival. TO kick it off we first took part in a kids fishing event. Both L and Little M got lines and bait and we actually fished off the dock. As you can see below, L was concentrating a lot to see if he felt anything and he actually got some bites (though we did not get any fish). Little M claims she got some bites too although she did not stay at it as long as her brother. We then went into the festival where there was seafood galore, seafood cooking classes, music, and buskers (street performers). We spent a very long day there and had a blast. Ate mussles, prawns, snapper, and contemplated sea cucumber.
