Week 3: Glaciers & Fiordland

After a great week on the north central west coast, we've moved south - first 3 nights on Franz Josef at the foot of several glaciers, and then way south to Fiordland National Park for 4 nights on Manapouri. 

These areas are probably what the south island is best known for... Particularly the iconic Milford Sound pictured above.  It doesn't disappoint!  

Our first couple of days near the glaciers included a bunch of hikes to various lookouts and scenic vistas in the deep valleys under the glaciers. Sadly, the glaciers a retreating rapidly, so they are now a long way from the main highway, and hiking trails can only safely approach to points more than a mile down valley.  For reference, in 2013 when I was here with students, we could walk to within a few hundred yards of the front of the glacier!

Between Fran Josef and Manapouri was a long, 7 hour drive over winding mountain highways - lots of spectacular views and vistas, and a great stop at a place called the "Blue Pools" just over the top of the Haast Pass. Very cool - literally (it's all snow melt) as well as figuratively!

Here's the first place I've really wished I'd brought a fly rod with me- the water was crystal clear, and you could see huge trout swimming through the deep blue pools! Of course there were always a few crazies who couldn't resist taking a dip here ;-). Instant hypothermia...

In Manapouri, we hoped spend most of our time in Fiordland National Park, and I've been fretting about the weather here for most of our trip. In the sunshine, the mountains and fiords here are spectacular; in the rain and clouds... Still cool, but decidedly more challenging to hike in, etc. Particularly given that Milford Sound, the highlight of any trip here, is the wettest sea level location on Earth - they get up to 17 meters of precipitation each year!  

Fortunately, we got two gorgeous warm, sunny, summer days.  Our first day we hiked up the Routburn Track about 3 miles into the bush, and 1600' upward, to the top of Key Summit, one of the lesser peaks, but one with a breathtaking 360 degree view of all the peaks and glacial valleys below us.  I hiked this with my students on the snow in 2013, and I really wanted Norma to see this spot-- snow-free of course though!

Finally, that brought us to Milford Sound, where is booked a boat cruise back in July,  rolling the dice hoping for a good weather day. Boy did we get lucky - Christchurch was in a state of emergency with widespread flooding the same day! Here's about 1% of the gazillion photos I took ;-)

Until next week -

Cheers from NZ!