Day 9

We woke to the rain pitter-pattering on the roof and windows of Van.  It’s another rainy day on the west coast of the south island.  We packed up slowly, in no hurry to get out into the rain.  Fox Glacier was down the road and a short hike from the parking lot to the glacier.  A similar layout to Franz Joseph, with the town and iSite just a couple of kilometers and a small bridge from the entrance to Fox Glacier. The hike was similar as well, though much more wet, as the rain was persisting. This hike however, brought us considerably closer to the glacier, with a higher vantage point so we could see the glacier river flowing out of the bottom of the ice caves. 

After bumping into several of the same people we’d seen at Franz Joseph and navigating a large group of Japanese tourists, we made it back to Van and hit the road again.

Before leaving the west coast, we made one last stop as the rain began to subside, to check out a beach with some special inhabitants. Once again, we hiked a couple of kilometers through what was the most classically rainforesty rainforest we’d seen, to appear on a beach on a small cove. 

The Sea

We were given the heads up by a non-english speaking man that “they,” (while pinning his elbows to his sides, and flapping his hands about), “are that way”. We dutifully followed his directions along the beach and rocks, dodging the incoming tide, and found two women standing atop a boulder on the beach. We climbed up and waited until we spotted movement. We pulled out the monocular, and quickly pulled into focus two penguins scuttling out of the rocks onto the beach. Their eyes were highlighted with yellow mascara, and bodies adorned with the classic tuxedo. This truly gave a sense of how far south, and how close to Antarctica we really were.

Penguin 

Penguin Coming Out of the Sea

Now it was time to put our camping coordinates into the GPS and leave the coast heading inland.  We had some rock climbing to do. 

As we drove through what is told to be the most rainy of the alpine passes, we had dry roads.  As we followed the river through the tight narrow roads we saw the top of the gorge was dotted with windmills.  The first sign of clean energy we’d seen in this land of coal, timber, and sheep.  As we crested the southern alps the river changed directions and lead into teal lakes surrounded by jagged saw tooth peaks. We descended following the river towards Wanaka. We ended the day with a campsite recommended by Wildernests,  located right along a serene river surrounded by orange poppies, yellow lupine, and willows.  In this quaint and quiet site we washed our potatoes the river, pitched our camp chairs, and enjoyed our dinner and wine.