Glaciers, gorges and glee, oh my!
We made it out to the West Coast of New Zealand, and traversed through almost every ecosystem possible to and through here. We saw rainforests, the beach, glaciers and swamp-like land. Fox 🦊 township was the first glacier town we went to once we got to the West Coast. It was a pretty low key day as the town was relatively small; we did some decent hikes around the town and to viewing points of the glacier. First thing we did in Fox was hike around Lake Matheson. On a clear day, the lake perfectly reflects Mount Tasman and Mount Cook, the latter being the tallest mountain in NZ. The water was a bit choppy but we were still able to get good views of both peaks. As for the hike to the glacier, unfortunately, the road leading to the main Fox hike was closed and we could only see the glacier from afar. Apparently a few weeks ago, a big storm wiped out the entire road up to the trailhead, one they had just spent over a million to repair due to the same washout last year. We did a quick twenty minute hike and saw the glacier from afar. Content with what we’d seen for the day, we drove to our campsite at Gillespie Beach, a Dept. of Conservation campground literally right on the beach. We set up the tent then walked on the breezy beach for a bit and stuck our toes in the Tasman Sea. From our campsite, we got an amazing view of the two peaks.
While we were getting ready for bed (umpteenth time brushing our teeth outdoors), a couple noticed Jared’s sweatshirt and asked if we went to VT. Turns out, the guy went to medical school in Roanoke through VT and they lived in DC for a bit! We talked for twenty minutes about back home, our times in NZ and recommendations for things to see. Boy, the world does feel small sometimes. Saying our goodbyes, we made it back to our tent.
The next day, we headed to Franz Josef for our 12PM heli-hike. Getting into town a little early, we spent some time looking in shops. There was a nice downtown and we spotted a brewery where we’d spend some time later in the day. When we arrived at Franz Josef Glacier Guided, we were dismayed to hear that due to the low clouds in the valley, our trip had been cancelled. We were told we could be put on the standby list for the following day and decided to do this. The cafe in the building had WiFi so we spent some time researching other parts of our trip and trying to figure out what to do the rest of the day. With the clouds ominously floating above us, neither of us really wanted to do a hike since we wouldn’t be able to see much. Our heli-hike tickets came with entry to the glacier hot pools so we decided to do that. We spent some time soaking our muscles in the 38* and 40* Celsius pools. Lucky for us, there were showers in the changing rooms. Five days later, we finally had a shower!! Probably the highlight of our day.
After finally freshening up, we went back downtown to SnakeBite Brewery for happy hour (yes, Kiwis like discounted alcohol during certain hours as well). Being the craft beer snobs we are, we were a little judgmental that they called themselves a brewery since none of the beers on tap were there own. However, the options were still good. If you’ve ever heard of a snakebite, it’s traditionally when you mix a cider with a type of beer so that the effect is two “layers” of alcohol in your glass. I opted to mix their berry cider with their mango lime cider and it was delicious! We stayed for a bit to split some food and play some cards ♦️ ♥️. Another slower and relaxing day, we went to our campsite hoping for more luck in the morning. At this point, we’d gotten a call saying we were able to get on the 8:45 flight the next morning, weather permitting.
That night at the campsite was probably the worst night of sandflies we’ve experienced so far. I’m not positive if I’ve described these devil creates in prior blogs but my goodness if they’re not the work of demons then I don’t know what is. These insects are predominantly found in the West Coast of the country and it’s only the females that bite. Essentially, they suck the blood out of us for our protein so that they are more fertile. Sandflies don’t have the capability to transmit any disease but they leave the worse kind of bites that leave parts of your body, mainly ankles, in agony for days. Most research told us to prepare with DEET but not wanting to put chemicals on us, we got a product called Goodbye Sandfly. It’s a blend of essential oils that are supposed to repel them. While we think it’s helped a little, our legs still look like you can play connect the dots on them.
Waking up a little grumpy from more bites we’d received through the night, we packed up camp and went back into town hoping for better news.
Huzzah! The tour was on! We gobbled our granola bars in the parking lot and checked in for our tour. Once called, we went to the changing room and were given waterproof pants, jacket, wool socks, boots and crampons. After all suited, we walked as a group (about 12 of us) for five minutes to the helicopter pad. We were divided into two groups and I was put in the front seat of the helicopter 🚁 woohoo. The flight to the glacier took about five minutes and we saw spectacular views of the river and the glacier up close. The landing pad was literally on a small strip of ice and the pilot did a great job landing. After off the chopper, we congregated again as a group around the tour guide and watched as he explained how to put the crampons on our shoes (spikes that helped to grasp the ice). After the quick 401, we began the hike! The whole walk lasted for 2-3 hours as we wound through narrow crevices and up ice steps before rising to the top of the glacier. The guide shared interesting information about the glacier as we progressed. For example, the glacier is moving down the valley at a pace of approximately a meter a day! Because of the constant shifting, the routes through the glacier have to be assessed daily and the heli pad moves fairly frequently. Also, in cases of extreme fog/cloud disabling the pilot from coming back and picking up the group, sometimes the group is forced to camp overnight. The company has tents/food/everything you’d need and we thought it’d be a cool story to tell if it happened. Fortunately, the weather worked out and we were able to get our entire hike in.
The pilot mentioned something about a Christmas market at the community center, so on the way out of town, Jared and I stopped. The highlight was the food – we got 3 sausage sandwiches and a steak sandwich (nothing super fancy, it was on sliced white bread but hey) for $11.50 NZD!
Hokitika Coming down from our glacial high, we got to Hokitika early evening. It’s self-described as a “cool little town”. We had just enough time to walk around town a bit before all the shops closed. The town was a little ghost-like; all the buildings were a little outdated and there wasn’t too much of a downtown. There was a shop called Mountain Jade that offered free interactive tours on the local production of greenstone, or jade. We decided to come back in the morning at 9:30 for the tour. We headed back to our campsite and called it a night, beat from our hike.
The next morning, we woke up, broke camp and headed ten minutes back into town for the tour. Hokitika is world renowned for jade manufacturing, or what they call pounama. The store had beautiful carvings and jewelry. Jared saw a bench carved out of jade for around $250K! We could watch the original chunk of jade being cut to the jewelers carving the stone into beautiful curves and swirls for jewelry; the beginning to end product transformation was astounding.
From here, we drove out of town to Hokitika Gorge. The river was a super milky turquoise color due to three factors: movement of the earth, ice and lots of water.
The West Coast region of New Zealand gets more rain than anywhere else in New Zealand. The rain gauge measures about 12 meters of rain each year.
The gorge was beautiful. A quick jump and a skip and a walk over a swing bridge, we were at the river edge and sat contently with our feet in the water for a bit.
After this, we turned to our guidebook to do another obscure hike. About an hour away, there was a cesspool walk. Cesspool actually has a good connotation in this aspect. It is ……. we followed the trail down a gravel road, through a closed iron gate and down a washed out road yet the cesspool alluded us. We weren’t able to find our destination but hey, it’s about the journey right? We got some good valley and river views, plus we saw this really cool and inquisitive bird pictured below.
That was really all we did in the Hokitika area. If we were to do this trip again, we would nix stopping here because there just wasn’t that much to do. We were supposed to stay a second night but decided to haul butt to Arthur’s Pass NP instead. We got here around 6PM. There was a campground right across from the visitor center and we made a tuna salad dinner in the shelter before setting up our car to sleep in (the forecast was calling for overnight rain).
Luckily, we didn’t get too much rain overnight but we got a heap of rain the next day. Unfortunately it’s very hard to enjoy the outdoors when it’s precipitating dogs and cats all day. We got one hike in, the Devil’s Punchbowl hike, to a waterfall, before leaving the national park to head back out to the west coast. 
pictured above : Gollum from Lord of the stings on top of Otira Hotel! Self-proclaimed as one of the weirdest hotels in NZ.
We’ve come to learn that national parks here aren’t quite like the ones in the states. While it’s awesome that they’re all free, they’re also a lot more empty if that makes sense. For example, our headlight battery died and we spent an hour driving through the national park looking for a small cafe/village to charge it to no avail. In these parks, you’re definitely a lot more isolated for a lot longer of a time than the US counterparts. The weather hasn’t really been on our side either the last few days so we’re hoping we have better luck coming soon. We’re currently headed back out to the West Coast town of Greymouth, home of NZ-famous Monteith Brewery (hey, it’s still raining so we’re gonna drink beer). We’re heading further north the next few days so fingers crossed for better weather! ☀️
Tiff & Jared's adventures 
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