Saturday, November 25, 2006

Written back at Mission Bay, Auckland, still trying to catch up. I think I left off with us on our way to the Franz-Joseph glacier, so I'll pick up the threads from there.

We stopped at a decent little B&B at Franz-Joseph, after a very wet and windy drive. The next morning it had cleared and the sun was out, though still cold and we decided to do our walk up to the glacier. It's about a thirty-minute walk from the car park to the glacier, or as close as we were allowed to get to it, the whole thing is on the move all the time and huge lumps of ice and rock are constantly breaking off the leading edge. Snow falls up on the mountains and compresses under its own weight to form ice that moves downhill, behaving as a plastic solid and getting broken up and contorted in the process. At the leading edge melt-water pours out of an ice-cave, which can be seen in the picture. What the picture can't do, however, is give any idea of the scale of the glacier, it's immense. Just after we started the walk back to the car park it started to rain again, very heavily and we got soaked, but so what?

The pictures show Anne, on the path to the glacier and Anne at the Pancake Rocks.

Anne has just reminded me that on the way to Franz-Joseph we crossed two long, single-track bridges. Nothing strange about this; nothing except that the track is shared by railway trains, that is, you actually drive on the rails (which are close-boarded).

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Nelson and onwards, written at Christchurch. At Nelson we stopped at a B&B called Sussex House, a pretty place by a river, nineteenth-century, white-boarding, verandahs and all very nice (see the first picture). Our main excursion from Nelson was to the Abel Tasman trail, we travelled by bus to Kaiteriteri, took a water taxi to Bark Bay and walked back along the coastal path to Torrent Bay where we were collected by the water taxi and taken back to Kaiteriteri. From here, back to Nelson, on the bus. A throughly enjoyable day. On the track from Bark Bay to Kaiteriteri there is what they call here a swing-bridge (it's actually a wire-rope bridge) that bounces when you walk on it (see the second picture, showing Anne on the bridge).

We left Nelson on 6th November and drove to Pancake Rocks, known to Maori as Punakaiki. Here we put up for the night in a cottage belonging to a motel. It was next to the beach and was, in fact, what New Zealanders call a bach (pronounced batch). More about baches later, but this was perfectly decent accommodation. The pancake rocks themselves were very impressive, strange water-worn things with layers. It was drizzling when we arrived and overnight the drizzle turned into a torrent. From Pancake Rocks we drove down the west coast to the village at the Franz Joseph glacier, in terrific rain all the way and without so much as a glimpse of the Southern Alps through the gloom.

All written well after the event again, I'm afraid and still trying to catch up. I'm writing this in a B&B at Christchurch on 19th November. Anyway, here goes, trying to pick up the story at Wellington.

Impressions of Wellington; much smaller than we'd expected, but nice, surrounded by steep hills, with some very pretty late Victorian and Edwardian houses, especially along the seafront, all timber with verandahs. We spent most of our stay here walking around the seafront and the museum. The weather was sunny in the main, but there was a wicked wind blowing from the south, a bit like the mistral, that throws dust in your eyes and makes your teeth ache. Had a not very good meal at a French restaurant which was also expensive, by NZ standards.

On the afternoon of the 3rd November we reported to the ferry terminal at Wellington for the crossing to the South Island, which took about three hours, less than a hour to leave the harbour behind, about another hour to cross the Cook Straights and about an hour steaming up the Queen Charlotte Sound (in the Tory Channel) to Picton. The scenery in the Queen Charlotte Sound is magnificent, with wooded hills dropping straight into the sea on boths sides. From Picton to our B&B in Nelson (by the quick route not the scenic one) arriving at about eight o'clock in the evening.

The pictures show (1) me, on the waterfront at Wellington, standing in front of an old steam floating crane and (2) the sun, detail from a modern Maori meeting-house built within the museum.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

BELATED SOUTH ISLAND BLOG. Sunday, 12th November. I'm writing this on the laptop in a motel in Te Anau, Fiordland, in the deep south of the South Island. Some kind person nearby has left a wireless Internet connection open that I've managed to latch onto, many thanks to my anonymous benefactor. Picking up the story from where I left off:

We left Auckland on 31st October and headed south for about an hour. We were then obliged to head north again to where we started, because one of us had left our travel plans behind in Mission Bay (no names, no pack-drill). After this local difficulty had been put right we drove to Taupo, where we checked into a motel on the lakeside. It was from here that we saw our first snow-capped mountains.

1st November. Left Taupo and took the Desert Road across to Waiouru and then on to to Paraparaumu, where we checked-in to a motel. On the way across the desert we stopped at the NZ army museum, looked around and had a bite to eat in the restaurant there. Outside the museum, an old cannon with a Russian double-headed eagle mark, but with no words of explanation. At Paraparaumu (called by the locals 'Paraparam') ate at a fish restaurant called 'The Mussel Boys', on the wall a display showing the secret life of the mussel.

2nd November. Departed Paraparaumu for Wellington and checked-in to our hotel. There were activities in Wellington that had brought a lot of visitors into the city for the week-end, including a veterans' rugby tournament. We had to struggle to book anywhere, but in the event the hotel was just fine, if a little, er, unprepossessing.

I'll post this now, and do some more when I get the chance. Only one picture, Anne with the old Russian cannon.