New-Yorker-blog-karenrobbins

Old mine car, Ross.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

It’s Halloween. The festivities seem very subdued here. There are not the pop-up stores with costumes and ghoulery that you see back home. We asked someone if the kids trick-or-treat and they said yes but not a lot of people support it. It will be interesting to see how the day goes.

I can’t believe we are down to our last week. The time seems to have flown by. This last week will be a marathon of sorts as we will be spending only one night in each place we stop. It rained off and on last night and is raining as I stir to look at the clock and see that it’s almost time to get up. I’m enjoying these electric blankets too much. Guess we’ll be getting one for sure when we get home.

Our first stop is not planned until about two hours up the road on the way to Greymouth. I study the map and find a note that there is a white heron colony on the way. The rain slows and stops as we near where I think the colony is. We see a booking place that advertises tours to the white herons but no park signs to indicate where they are. After driving down a gravel road we think might lead us there, we turn around worried that we might end up in a flooded area.

We continue on SH6 headed for the swing bridge Bob has scheduled but again I see on the map that there’s a spot we might want to explore in a town called Ross. It’s a short walk that explores the history of gold mining in that area. It was one of the small towns that sprang up during the gold rush of the 1860s. At its largest, there were about 2500 inhabitants but that fell off sharply when the gold was depleted. I find it interesting that the gold rush in both the US and NZ took place along the west coasts.

Our short walk has revived us and we start off again for the swing bridge. Lady Garmon is showing us a strange route that takes us way off in a different direction than Greymouth. I study the map book a bit and see that she’s correct in wanting us to go that direction. In this case, it’s the trip planner (Bob) who didn’t pay attention to where this spot was. We decide not to drive the 66 km out of the way and continue on the main highway toward Greymouth.

Just outside Greymouth we turn off to a place called Shantytown. The western part of the southern island of New Zealand is where the country’s gold rush took place. Shantytown is a rebuilt typical gold town that was conceived back in 1968 as a way of preserving some of the heritage of the area as well as being a tourist attraction. We arrive in time for lunch and head to the King Dick’s Café. A sandwich, a bowl of soup and a pot of tea for two and we are ready for a steam train ride.

The steam train is included in the price of entry and takes passengers on a short jaunt to one end of the property where platforms are set up for passengers to file out of the car and up steps to inspect the steam engine. We file into one side of the engine and out the other getting to see all the levers and such that run the engine including the place where the coal is stoked to keep the boiler steaming. I am amazed that the group of school children are allowed through with the hot furnace so accessible. The group of 25 or so five to seven year olds make it through unscathed and we all board the passenger car again to back up to the sawmill.

At the sawmill everyone except the school group exits the train to see the mill as well as the sluice box demonstration and my favorite, gold panning.

I remember panning for gold in Alaska and I wanted to try my hand once more. I get a lesson and begin. The stones and sand in the pan are coarser than what I panned in Alaska. It takes quite a while but finally I am almost to the end of swishing out the stones and sand and finding the gold in the bottom. There is a thin line of glittering gold in the crease of the pan and the attendant takes it from me to put into a bottle. I tell him to give it to a little boy from Australia who was panning next to me. I just wanted the experience. I still have my gold flakes from Alaska in a necklace at home.

Three of the buildings in Shantytown are original, the church, the gem and mineral center, and Coronation Hall which was actually built in Ross in 1902 but was scheduled for demolition and was then moved to Shantytown to preserve it. The church was also moved here from a place called No Town. It is built all from kauri wood, the national tree that is now protected.

The sun shines brightly as we finish our walk through Shantytown. We are off to find our last stop before checking into our motel. When we took the TranzAlpine train trip from Christchurch to Greymouth the commentary told of the industrial area here where they mined coal and produced coke and bricks at one time at the Brunner Mine.

We find this walk easily enough. It is right alongside the highway. We park and find our way down to where we can cross the bridge built in 1887 to carry rail cars full of coal and bricks across the Grey river to the railway on the other side for shipment to other parts of the country and the world. It was restored in 2004.

All that is left of what was once a thriving industrial area are ruins. We walk past the coke ovens and then realize we need to start in the other direction. As we walk the track, there are lots of informational signs that tell the story of what happened here including a major mine explosion in 1896 that killed 65 men and boys working in the mine.

The sun is still shining but there is a cold breeze that sends a chill up my spine. It’s going to be a chilly night if there are trick-or-treaters. After a dinner at a restaurant close to our motel, we get in the car and drive through town and out on the point of the wharf as suggested by our host at the motel. We’re too tired to wait for the sunset though and decide to just get the groceries we need for the next few days and relax in our room.

While we have free internet here in our motel, the WiFi doesn’t make it all the way to our room. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure which rooms are getting it because several people are outside moving closer to the office to connect. With the chill night air, Bob opts to sit in the car to connect. I’m sure he’s out there checking on the aquarium through our webcam and posting some Tripadvisor reviews but I better go check to be sure he hasn’t fallen asleep out there.

Kea in the bush

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Coffee and breakfast in our room this morning. Breakfast is usually cereal and whole grain raisin English muffins with peanut butter and jelly.  It’s the easiest to carry and not have to worry about keeping it cold. Soy milk for me. It doesn’t need refrigeration but we usually have a refrigerator we can keep it cold in. Each place we stay usually offers us a carton or small bottle of milk so Bob uses that for his cereal. It’s worked quite well.

We don’t have anything planned until 10:15 when we are scheduled to take a tour to the Franz Josef Glacier. In Bob’s research it wasn’t quite clear whether we could actually get to the glacier on our own so we booked a tour. Turns out after we looked at the local maps, we probably could. But the tour is booked and paid for so we’ll stick with the plan.

Instead of sitting around waiting for the tour time, we walk over to the Information Center that is open early. It’s a bit disappointing because it isn’t as nice as the one in Haast was. It’s mainly just a brochure center with a souvenir shop. We walk down the street and check out the booking center that advertises showing a movie of the glacier. We thought it might be free—sort of an incentive to book with them to see what’s on the video, but we find it costs $12 NZD. I do find a nice kiwi ornament for our Christmas tree though in their gift shop.

Down the street and around the corner is another wildlife center. It is an opportunity to see kiwi much like we did in Rotorua. These kiwi are more rare and smaller that the brown kiwi we saw up north. The price is $50 NZD and there isn’t a whole lot more to see. Glad we did it in Rotorua.

On the way back to our room to pick up our gear, we stop in the small supermarket and get a couple of tomatoes and some rolls to have with the leftover pasta from my dinner last night. It was way too much to eat and will make a great lunch.

We check into the Franz Josef Glacier Guides and fill out all the disclaimers, politely decline their hiking boots and jackets. It can’t be any worse than the Fox Glacier track and we survived that with our own shoes and gear. A short drive in a mini bus to the parking lot by the tracks to the glacier and we are off. It is a small group of five plus three guides. One to lead, one in training, and one who is checking the track for damage from the recent rains.

The walk starts off in the bush and our guide, Phil, who has studied botany at the university gives us some great information on some of the plants we see. To everyone’s delight, we find a Kea parrot in the woods. He poses for us a bit. When Bob tells one of the guides about the Kea in the park at Ta Anau, he pulls out his iPhone to show him the video. As it plays and the noise the Kea makes is heard, the Kea in the trees moves a bit closer to us. Not sure what that Kea dance video means but it did attract him.

The dense growth of plants and trees changes to sparser new growth where the forest is moving into the area where the glacier has retreated and then we are into the valley. The stones are quite interesting but a little treacherous as we march on. Phil takes us on and off the public path. There are some huge waterfalls on either side of the valley we walk through. Down the middle is the braided glacial river flowing from the Franz Josef glacier.

There are several places where we have to ford the streams but we make it without falling in or getting our feet wet. When we reach the place where the public path ends, the guides lead us over the barrier and we begin our ascent on the terminal moraine. The moraine is the huge pile of stone pushed forward when the glacier advances. This glacier is quite active and has advanced and receded at a pretty fast rate.

The huge moraine we climbed.

The moraine is not only stones and boulders, it is also made of some of the ice from the glacier. In some places where the stones have washed away, you can see the ice under it. I look up the hill of stone and boulder and wonder if I’m up to it. I’ve come this far. I can make it, I tell myself.

While it is a steep climb, the narrow footpath switches back and forth and Phil doesn’t rush us. He points out some pieces of quartz and talks of finding quartz crystals sometimes when the rocks shift. The reward for climbing to the top is a spectacular view of the glacier. As we take pictures and just sit and admire one of nature’s great works of art, someone shouts. They’ve seen a piece break off and roll down the face of the glacier on the left side where much of it is covered in stone and silt. It actually sends up a cloud of dust that eventually begins to drift into the valley.

As we descend, I realize that we have completely lost the sun and the clouds have become heavier. A slight mist is hitting my face, a mist or perhaps a little of the dust from the glacier. Safely back on the floor of the valley we pick up a little speed by sticking to the public path this time. Phil stops several times to point out the fault lines in the alpine mountains surrounding us and a big hole in the ground called a kettle where a huge chunk of ice was stuck for a time and the rocks and silt were pushed around it. When the ice melted, all that was left was a hole in the ground where it was.

Our walk finishes about three hours after we started and back in the town, we walk around the corner to our motel and fix lunch. With nothing else planned for the afternoon, we decide it’s a good opportunity to do laundry one last time. It takes a little longer to dry for some reason. I suspect a problem with the dryer because the manager comes and puts two more coins in for me when he saw my clothes hadn’t dried.

Down the street and around the block from our hotel are two more tracks and we decide to do a little more walking before dinner. Unfortunately the rain returns and we are rather wet when we arrive at the restaurant that we chose for dinner. The hostess greets us as if nothing were wrong and we sit where we can put our all weather coats on chairs to dry.

Feeling on top of the world.

While we wait to order, I read the history of the Alice May Restaurant. It’s rather interesting. Alice May Parkinson was one of 12 children. She was born in the back country of Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. The family was relatively poor and she worked as a domestic from the age of 14. Later she became pregnant with her lover’s child which was stillborn. When the lover rejected her after he had promised to marry her, she took a gun and shot him four times. She then tried to kill herself. She was tried and sentence to life in prison. Her situation became the focus of a feminist Socialist Movement that gained momentum and support. She was eventually released after serving six years of her sentence. She went on to marry Charles O’Loughlin and have six children. The restaurant, opened by one of her grandchildren, is named in her honor and dedicated to the memory of her son, Bryan O’Loughlin. Amazing what you can learn while you wait for a delicious meal to arrive.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Sunshine greets us as we start out this morning. We head north for our glacier adventure. A ways up the highway, we stop to look out at the Knights Point Lookout. We can’t get out on the deck that is there due to some problems with it cracking but we manage to walk back and forth along the fenced area and take a few pictures. Bob spots what he thinks are penguins and when he asks a maintenance worker the young man says if we want to see penguins, we should go to Monro Beach.  We ask Lady Garmon if she knows where Monro Beach is but she doesn’t come up with it so we just drive on.

Suddenly Bob slows the car and prepares to turn. I see it too. A park sign that says Monro Beach Track. We park, grab our gear and head off for a one hour return walk. Return is the word used for roundtrip. It is a great morning for a walk. The sun filters through the trees highlighting mossy tree trunks and all sorts of ferns and leafy plants. We can hear several different birds singing. I love the melodies of the New Zealand birds.

We finally get to a wonderful sandy beach and find an interpretive sign that tells all about the penguins that are in this beach area. They have feathery yellow horns above their eyes. A little fancier than the yellow eyed penguins we have seen.

The beach is empty. We search the grassy area where the sand meets the plant growth to see if we can spot a penguin on a nest. This is nesting season and at least one of the mating pair sits on the nest while the other gathers food in the sea. Try as we may, we can’t see anything. We do find a seal further down the beach in a rocky area. The rest of his colony must be out fishing. It is hard to be entirely disappointed. It is a nice walk and the beach is pristine.

Lady Garmon shows that it will be lunchtime when we get to Fox Glacier which is a little town that takes its name from the glacier nearby. We pass up the turn to the glacier in order to find a restaurant or café for lunch. We find a café and enjoy a light lunch before we set out for our glacier walk.

The walk to the glacier is a bit treacherous and mostly uphill which at times is very steep. The rocky path crunches and slips beneath our feet. I worry what it will be like going back down. We finally get to the top and have a terrific view of the face of the glacier. There is a large cave at the bottom from which water is pouring out. Some of the water is being fed from waterfalls on the side of the glacier. It must travel underneath but as it does, it collects gray silt and stone so the water coming our looks like a watery cement color.

There are lots of blue crevices where the snow and ice have packed so tightly that the only color that gets refracted by the sun is a deep blue. We’ve seen it in the glaciers in Alaska. It is an awesome sight. Pictures taken and enough of a rest for the return, we head back. As we do, a misty rain begins. The sun has hidden behind clouds that have moved in and it looks like we are in for a damp trip back.

By the time we reach the car, it is raining steadily. Our motel is in the next glacial area called Franz Josef and the rain comes and goes over the thirty minutes it takes us to get there.  We check in and find we’ve been upgraded to a king-size suite. It’s very nice and we plan to enjoy it since it is our last two-night stop.

The rain lets up long enough for us to check out the Information Center but unfortunately it is too late and the center is closed. We wander around a bit looking at options for dinner and settle on one that is nice and toasty inside.

There is a short walk nearby that is supposed to have glow worms along it so we scope it out right after dinner. If it’s not raining we plan to go back after dark to see the glow worms. We walk the track to the end and back and the only places we see where there might be glow worms are in several huge trees that have been uprooted and the roots are so huge they are like small caves. We look around for the telltale strings that the worms put out but don’t see any. Still, we decide to return after dark weather permitting.

After our coffee and dark chocolate Tim Tams (we are officially addicted to these cookies now) we watch a bit of TV until the sun sets. Flashlight in hand, we start down the track again. It’s a bit ominous as the trees are black and look like any movie set for a horror picture. Plus it’s only a few days to Halloween. Should we really be during this?

Thankfully the largest tree-cave is not that far along the trail and we study the roots. Suddenly we begin to see them. Little blue pin pricks of light. We fiddle with iPhones and my camera trying to get pictures but it isn’t easy. Bob ends up with a blue dot on a picture on his iPhone and we are satisfied with that. Our step is a little quicker as we return. It’s getting darker and the rain is starting again. I think this night qualifies as our Halloween fright night as we finally leave behind the black forest and make our way to our room to turn on the electric blankets and slip into a warm bed.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Haast, our destination for today, is a very, very small town. We stop this morning at the grocery store before we leave Queenstown to replenish some of our breakfast supplies. Coffee, English muffins and a big container of spring water to fill our drink bottles with and we are on our way. We barely make it to the edge of town when I insist I need to get a few pictures. The sun is shining brightly and the new fallen snow has made the mountains gleam white in the sunshine.

We stop at McDonald’s for one last coffee. Who knows when we’ll see a McD’s again? Pictures done. Coffee in hand. We finally leave Queenstown behind us and head for Haast. Just past the Arrowtown turnoff we took yesterday, Lady Garmon asks us to go up the Crown Range Road which will take us a shorter way but will require us to go higher up in the mountains. Knowing there is fresh snow we pull off into a graveled area to make our decision.

The graveled area is a place where cars can put on their chains if they are needed for the road ahead. There is a sign that tells us the road is open but to expect some icy spots with grit. We suspect that the grit is sand or fine stone that is spread like we would spread salt back home on our snowy/icy roads. The sign says nothing about putting on chains so we decide that we will take that route. The scenery will probably be really nice and Bob promises to take it slow if necessary.

Sure enough not far along we see a grit truck. It resembles one of our snowplows only it doesn’t have a plow in front, only a spreader in back that is spewing something on the pavement. Grit, I’m sure. With the sun shining so nicely the roads seem dry for the most part. The only place it looks wet is in the shade of trees or mountainside. . .until we get up higher.

Higher up and in the shade of the mountainside we find a bit of icy road but not dangerously so. And there is grit on the road. You can hear the tires grinding it in. Bob slows down around the curves and since there is no traffic behind us, we don’t feel pressured. We were correct in assuming the views would be worth the trip. We are right up in the snow-capped area of the mountains we are traversing. The pine trees we see on the mountain sides around us have that dusty snow look. Just like any early spring snow, the trees that have budding leaves are heavy where the snow has hit them but we can see the sun doing its work as the melting snow drips from the leaves and branches.

Blue Pool

Our trip through the mountain ridge is over rather quickly and we are back down to a greener altitude. Before long we are in the Aspiring National Park, named after the mountain peak that is in the middle of it. A heart shape shows up on Lady Garmon’s display and I ask Bob what he’d saved as a destination here. He forgot that there was something called the Blue Pools here to see. When we find the park sign for them, we pull off to explore.

The path leads down. That means one thing to me. Coming back it will lead up and my knees groan at the thought. It is a gentle slope though and as we walk along, we find signs that tell what kind of native trees and plants are growing there.

A boardwalk, a suspension bridge and another bridge and we are there. Below us on the last bridge is the blue pool. Well it’s supposed to be blue but the recent rain activity has brought so much silt and other stuff down from the mountaintop that the pool is more green than blue and the trout that are supposed to be there aren’t. Still, it is a nice walk and the return to the car is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

We see a sign for the Fantail Waterfall and pull into the car park for it but it appears that to see the waterfall we would have to cross the river that is swollen with water. There is a trail marker on a tree on the other side. I’m sure that most of the time the river doesn’t run this deep or fast. We pass.

Thunder Falls is marked on our map and we find the sign for the turnoff a short time later. This time we are sure we will see it as it is visible through the trees from the road. A short walk and we stand in front of a huge waterfall that is indeed thundering over the cliff before us.

It’s noon and we still have a ways to go before we get to Haast. We open a bag of salt and vinegar chips and start snacking. I put it away before we end up finishing the bag again. We can’t keep eating chips for lunch. Once we finally reach Haast, we find our motel, drop our things in the room and aim for a place called Jackson Bay.

In Jackson Bay, there is a small restaurant called the Craypot where we want to eat. It turns out to be a funky kind of place that is actually in a large old railway carriage. A small kitchen turns out quite a menu including whitebait patties which have been recommended to us several times. This is the season for them. We place an order and sit at a small booth, one of six at one end of the trailer. There are places to eat outside but it’s a little too cool and windy to do that.

The whitebait patty sandwich is more like an omelet with the little whitebait fish in it. I don’t taste the fish so much. Just the egg. The fries (chips) are great. Done just right and our pot of tea warms us up. I overhear the owner talking to a local about how the season is about to kick off. This is summer coming up for them and there will be lots of hikers and fishermen I’m sure will stop by her place.

Jackson Bay isn’t much of anything that we can see but there once was a settlement there. In 1875, as one sign tells us, the New Zealand government sponsored an ill-conceived program to settle more than 400 European immigrants at Okahu (Jackson Bay) and surrounding districts. The difficult country, inhospitable climate, inexperience of many settlers, lack of a wharf to export their produce soon finished the scheme although descendants of some of those early pioneers still live in the area. Along the way back, we stop at an old cemetery that holds the graves of some of those early settlers.

 Back in Haast, we stop at the Wildlife Information Center. It sits off the road and you might pass it if you don’t look for the sign. It is a great display of history and nature of the area. We learn that the cone shaped nets we’ve seen attached to what look like flimsy docks along the area where ocean meets river are for catching whitebait and this is the season for them.

Arriving back at our motel, we find a gentleman sitting outside his room with nets and a plastic container that appears to be full of water. Bob asks what he’s got in the container and he smiles and says, “Not much.” He takes the lid off and we get our first close up glimpse of whitebait. They are small (2-3 inches) spaghetti-like fish that are silvery but clear. You can see through them. They look like x-rays of fish.

Bob asks how he fixes them and he tells us how to make whitebait patties. When Bob asks if you gut the fish, he smiles again. Nope, he says, you just use them whole. Bob decides he doesn’t want any more whitebait no matter who might recommend them. We end up with vegetable soup for dinner at a small nearby restaurant.

After dinner, I make coffee for us in our room and we wait until it’s almost time for sunset. We go down to Haast Beach and watch the sunset into the Tasman Sea. No green flash but the sun reflecting on the surf is pretty. It’s chilly and we don’t linger. Time to rev up those electric blankets.