Franz Josef to Picton

Sunday 6th April we woke up to another beautiful sunny day.We are staying on a site underneath the glacier. What shall we do?? Silly question! We go to book a helicopter flight to both the Franz Josef & Fox Glaciers for later that day. (Another of Pat’s must do’s). She is right, of course, it was my first flight in a helicopter & it was brilliant. After flying up to Franz Josef & getting in close up to the ice we went on to the Fox Glacier & landed on it. The glacier is some 40mtrs. deep & is moving 9mtrs per month but unlike other glaciers this one is growing. The views were fantastic, needless to say.
After landing we set off for Greymouth further up the west coast where we stopped for the night. We had already been here before when we came from Christchurch on the Trans Alpine Express so we didn’t go into the town centre. Instead we visited a place called Shantytown, an open air museum, which recalls the Westlands coal & gold mining past. Coal is still very important & a lot of what is mined is exported. Later that day we moved on further up the coast to Westport stopping on the way at Punakaiki to view the Pancake Rocks & blow holes which are best seen at high tide when the sea spouts into the air through the holes. We arrived at low tide. The rocks themselves are so-called because of the way they appear layered like thin pancakes.
On Tuesday we went first of all to Cape Foulwind (no jokes please) Lighthouse for a short cliff walk.
The cape was named by Capt. Cook because he almost ran aground here and the name has stuck. Then on to Tauranga Bay where there is a permanent colony of NZ fur seals which, at this time, are rearing the pups that were born earlier in the year. Although we were some distance away at the cliff top we could clearly see the pups which had all been tagged to trace their movements. There are colonies of these seals in South Australia although they are native to NZ.
We then set off for Nelson stopping on the way at the Buller Gorge, near Muchison so that Pat could have another go at crossing a swing bridge this one being the highest in NZ. It may be the highest but it didn’t swing as much as the one at the Blue Pools. On we went to Nelson where we stopped for two nights to take it easy although we did do a sightseeing trip on an old London Transport double-decker bus.
Thursday we left Nelson to go into the Abel Tasman Park & Golden Bay. What Pat didn’t tell me, she says she didn’t know, is that this involves going over Takaka Hill aka Marble Mountain which means going from sea level to nearly 800mtrs. up & up for what seemed like forever and with my love of driving on high roads I wasn’t feeling too happy. Still, the views from the lookout at the top were something else. She then tells me that this is the only road in &, therefore, the only road out. Great!
We eventually stopped at Pohara Beach Holiday Park which, as the name suggests, is by the sea from where we went on to Farewell Spit the furthest northern settlement on South Island. This part of Golden Bay is on a migratory path for birds from Alaska, Russia, China, SE Asia, Indonesia & Australia & seems to be home to thousands & thousands of Black Swans.
We also visited the Waikoropupu Springs (Pupu for short) the largest spring in Australasia & the fifth in the world. It is reckoned to have the clearest water of any. The equivalent of 40 bath tubs of water come up through the ground every second.
Saturday we drove back over that hill to Nelson & then on to Picton where we are booked on the ferry to the North Island on Sunday.
Pics are of Fox Glacier, Pancake Rocks & View from Takaka Hill