Roadtrip Part Three: Westland and Central Otago

Kiwi-crossing sign in Okarito.

OK! On to the last leg of my roadtrip:

After leaving the northern tip of the South Island, we headed west. We stopped for the occasional sight-seeing along the way, including a stop at the longest swinging bridge in New Zealand, that, while very long, wasn’t all that different from the “Be Kind to your mother-in-law” swinging bridge in good old hometown Croswell. Just the kiwi-one is higher up and about twice as long! And the Buller Gorge puts the Black River to shame as far as beauty and ruggedness go. The Black River just can’t compare to a glacier-fed, raging New Zealand river. Oh well.

Buller Gorge Swingbridge.

VS.

Croswell swinging bridge!

From there, we headed to the west coast to see Pancake Rocks. They’re a geological anomaly. Layer on layer of flat rock stacked up in columns and falling into the Tasman Sea.

Pancake Rocks.

I really enjoyed looking around there, because the tourist path was literally cut through the rock!

Me emerging from the pancake staircase.

We stayed the night in Greymouth on the west coast that night, officially in nephrite-Jade country. New Zealand prides itself on the production of greenstone art and jewelry. It’s beautiful stone and can be carved into many shapes and sizes of necklace. The acquiring of a piece is significant, however. No one is supposed to buy their own jade. It must be received as a gift. When a person gives a greenstone to another, they are giving a piece of themselves with it. Kristin and I decided that we would buy each other a birthday gift, and we each picked the one we wanted and bought each other’s. Kristin got a dark green koru, which is a Maori symbol of a young fern unfurling (probably my favorite of the Maori symbols).

Kristin's koru greenstone.

I picked a bright green one that was a combination of two korus curling towards each other, looking almost like two tiny waves crashing into one another.

My dual-koru greenstone.

After spending a heap on our mutual Jade, we went to the most beautiful river I’ve ever seen! It was in Hokitika Gorge…So blue you could barely believe your own eyes. It was the color of a Tahitian beach. Turquoise and perfect. The glaciers send a lot of particulates down the rivers, apparently lending them this blue color. The pictures of it can’t even do it justice.

Me, at Hokitika Gorge.

The next amazing side trip was interesting in an entirely different way. Using a book called “Hot springs of New Zealand” and armed only with a shovel, we followed some questionable directions in search of thermal hotsprings. We pulled up to the place where our path “began”. The road had fallen into the river and was blocked by a boulder pile. Instead, we walked along the extremely steep drop-off to the river through some farmland, and crawled through some people-trampled tunnels that had been carved slowly out under low hanging trees. Poor Mike had to almost crawl through…These passageways were more Emily-sized. Or Hobbit-sized. Whichever. We crossed a wrought-iron bridge and walked another 200 meters or so to a very vague “trail” leading off towards the river. We followed it and lo and behold, we hit the river bed and saw signs that others had been there and dug out hot pools recently! We spent over an hour there, digging out hot pools of our own. Once you walled your pool off from the river (glacial water is NOT warm), the thermal vents would heat you up quickly!!

Me, in my personal hotpool! I dug it myself.

The next day, we went to the gorgeous Franz Josef glacier. It was extremely lucky that we didn’t get rained on, because it rains there about 90% of the time. We got outfitted with water proof coats, pants, and boots (none of which fit me properly. Plus, my raincoat smelled like horrible body odor which was emanating from the armpit-region so ferociously that Kristin {stuck sitting crammed up next to me on the bus} chose to cover her nose with her hand for the entire ride! YUCK.)

ill-fitting and smelly gear. Note the awesome crampons, though.

But anyways, I guess that’s the breaks when they put the same gear on tourist after tourist after tourist. At the end, I told the guide that it needed a good washing and I believe he said “Oh really?” while tossing it right into the same pile as all the others.

I have digressed. The glacier. Right. It was about an hour or so of walking just to get to the base of the glacier. Then, we had an enormous gravel hill to climb. It had come pouring out of the glacier’s mouth a few years back. It took about ten minutes of steady uphill switchback-climbing to get to the glacier on the other side of the gravel pile. Wisely, we had decided to go with the “slow” group. We got to take a little extra time climbing and walking and in general were pansies compared to the other group. My theory was that I had paid a ton of money to be out there, and I’d rather not feel rushed or physically exhausted. Good choice.

We got onto the glacier and actually squeezed through a crevasse so narrow my hips didn’t fit square-on. I had to turn them sideways. You also couldn’t put one foot in front of the other, instead shuffling them each forward at the same rate, right in front of left.

Dorky self-picture? Yes. But it nicely captures the narrowness ahead!

We also got the chance to climb up the steepest parts using a hand-rope. This was the most challenging part for me. You had to pull yourself up the steep ice slope and I sorta neglected to spike the ice well, so I ended up working really hard to drag myself up with my arms and when I finally got a foothold, I took the biggest step my short legs could manage and totally pulled my quad muscle. Oops. After the hand-rope, though, we were at our highest point! It was cool. Little holes in the glacier had created neat little crystal clear pools of frigid water. I wanted to drink it. The return trip back down was also really cool because we got to go down a crevasse wall. We had to spike one side of the wall and then drop down and spike the opposite wall, until we got to the bottom. That I handled well (gravity is my friend). It was interesting being suspended however briefly between two ice walls.

Me, down in the crevasse.

We were pretty damned tired from the glacier trip. It was physically more demanding than I had expected, and we had sore feet from several hours of walking in borrowed boots. We hit the road, heading for Wanaka, and some amazing Mexican food for dinner.

The next day was Kristin’s birthday! I attempted to make tomato and cheese omelets using crappy pans from the hostel…they turned out pretty lame-o, but still tasted ok. We also fried up some bacon and made toast and sipped coffee, just enjoying her b-day morning. Then, we headed for wine-country! Central Otago is known for its red wines. Particularly Pinot Noir. I was the DD on this leg of the trip so Kristin and Mike could partake of the tastings at most every vineyard. Each vineyard is unique…One had this bizarre statue.

Strange, bizarro-erotic statue. We counted 4 people in it. The guy on the right side looks uncomfortable staring at his own junk for eternity.

Another had no one to greet us other than this really cute puppy (who melted my heart).

Cutest puppy ever. Too bad she had no opposable thumbs to serve us some wine.

We drove through wine country, stopping and going all day, finally winding up in Moeraki, back on the East coast. Moeraki is home to Fleur’s Place. This is a particularly esteemed seafood restaurant literally right on the ocean. The menus are written in pencil because they depend on what gets caught and cooked that day! I got blue cod, Mike got Salmon, and Kristin literally got an entire baked cod! It was all delicious and amazing. Including crème brulee for dessert. Yummy.

My cod with tartar sauce served in a paua shell!

Kristin's whole, baked, birthday cod from Fleur's.

Then, we headed back into Dunedin. And here we sit. No longer on vacation. SAD. It was such an amazing trip.

Now, though, it’s all business. Kristin and I both have much work to do. I have only 19 days left here, and still have an experiment to run and fish to dissect in the lab. I can’t believe it’s almost over. I’m truly enjoying New Zealand. Actually, though, winter is coming and it’s starting to get cold. I’ll be heading to the northern hemisphere just in time for summer! I can’t wait to see AP, my family, and all my friends in Minnesota and Michigan again. I miss you all! And I’ll be seeing you soon.

Until then, more precious quality time with this cool chick: