tiki tour (days 3-5)

Hey all,

To continue our journey...

Day 3 - Hokitika to Lake Paeringa (Glacier day!)
We woke up early Saturday morning to check out the lakefront, a steamship from the New Zealand gold era and the wreckage from the party that took place there last night. Luckily we were mostly out of earshot so we all seemed to have slept ok.

Our first stop along the way for our now traditional morning stop for a cuppa (coffee, or more specifically a flat white for mom and a long black for dad) was at the Bushmans cafe. A roadside restaurant cafe specializing in the cooking and eating of roadkill. No joke. Possum was on the menu in more than one place. And the menu also claimed that if you brought it in, they'd cook it up. Add to that a lot of colorfully offcolor gift cards, a bushmans museum, several animal pens, and some rather humorous letters (with responses from the owner) of people who found the cafe to be less than appetizing. Quite an interesting little place, it gave a good idea of what it probably takes to live on the wild wet west coast.

One of the captive red deer at the Bushman's cafe.

From the cafe we drove down a particularly windy stretch of road until finally pulling into view of the Franz Josef glacier. Franz Josef was named in the early 1900s after the Austria emporer by an Austrian explorer who was the first European to see it. It is rare in that it is one of the few glaciers that ends in a rain forest. We took a hike in to a couple little overlooks and got up to within about 300 meters of the face of the glacier. From there we got a pretty good look at some of the tour groups exploring the surface of the glacier itself. Maybe we'll have to try that next time we go back. We might also have to try out the indoor ice climbing center in town that looked like a good time.

From Franz Josef we continued on to Fox Glacier. Fox glacier was named by (and I guess after) then Prime Minister of New Zealand, the ever so humble William Fox. It was really interesting hiking to this glacier for me having just been there last year. The outlet river from the glacier appeared to have moved about 100 meters from where it exited the glacier last time. Apparently these glaciers are also some of the fasted moving in the world. A plane that crashed at the top of the glacier was spit out of the bottom only 6-1/2 years later.

From Fox Glacier we drove down the road to the campground at Lake Paeringa. A little lake about an hour north of Haast, where I made a brief, yet unfruitful attempt to catch dinner and then settled in for the night. We played cribbage after dinner and mom beat dad and I again to extend her unbeaten streak from the night before.

Day 4 - Lake Paeringa to Wanaka

I got up early to try again and learned that the problem wasn't lack of fish. They were massive and jumping all over the place. Including right next to my forelorn little fly. I guess it's clear that my technique is a bit lacking. Anyway, after trying my luck for about an hour and a half I packed it up and we hit the road after a fish free breakfast.

We drove East over the Haast pass through lovely native forest before stopping at Thunder Creek falls. Unfortunately two tour buses going in the opposite direction decided to stop at the same falls at the same time. I don't think I've seen this many people in one place in a long time. A bit of jostling later and we were at the overlook to the waterfall.

We decided to wait about 15 minutes for the tour groups to leave before we got the place all to ourselves. We took our requisite pictures and were back on our way. We passed through the Gates of Haast where I got this lovely shot of Mom helping Dad take a picture...

From there we stopped at another short little hike to Fantail falls. When we got to the river we were astonished to find hundreds of man made piles of rocks in every direction. Just amazing. We took lots of pictures of all the various rock piles ( almost ignoring the lovely waterfall) before taking the time to build our own pile.

Here's mom putting the final touches on our structure.

We arrived in Wanaka early that afternoon, checked into a holiday park, and took a much enjoyed hot shower. We booked a flightseeing tour for mom and dad for tomorrow morning and then headed in to town to do some shopping and exploring. Wanaka is a cute little town that kind of feels a bit like Tahoe. We had drinks by the fire at one of the little bars in town.