So, Brian hired a huge beast of a 7-seater car in the hope we would all go on a road trip with him. We did! Finley LOVED that he could be put in the middle row of chairs and have someone behind him to make faces at for once.We drove out north, past the turnoff for Lookout Lodge, and along the side of Lake Hawea for a bit before stopping for the 1t time to muck about on a lake beach. A lot of NZ plants are the same as UK - I'll need to look up if they were introduced-but things like the rosehips are HUGE. Pete found an apple and grossed us out by eating it!
Driving through a mountain pass,we saw a sign for 'Fantail Falls' and stopped to look, carrying Finley in his car seat. The trees were very green and coated in mosses, liverworts, etc. Through them we saw a bight area and it opened out into a big dry valley fall of stones, with a river running through it below the waterfalls. And everywhere, all over the stones, people had made wee stacks of the rounded rocks like we used to do with the kids on Chesil Beach! (I must admit, knowing that Adam who trained with me in Dorset, and went on to become head of Field Stdies lived around here, I wouldn't be surprised if he had started it). It was amazing, like a fairy landscape! Some were piled on the 'beach', some on fallen wood, some were mini stonehenges - great surprise and beautiful. We went wow for about 30 seconds and then the sandflies realised we had arrived.
NZ sandflies are not like Belize or UK sandflies - they are actual flies, medium sized black one. The bites HURT and draw blood, and as we found, get MORE itchy over the next several days - some of mine have lasted weeks and still itch. Yuk. So H&I were flapping at them around Finley and moving him lots, waiting for the boys to finish wading over to the little pebble 'island' nearer the falls. And made our own of course. Back at the car we debated boiling or sterilising the boy's feet s was suggested on the sign trying to stop the spread of an invasive yucky algae, but they escaped OK. A guy came over (Brit) to ask if they could swap some food - I think it was for some marge - and Heather using her brilliant bargaining skills (as seen in the Phillippines when her smile and a cheap hat netted us a load of fish) also gave him a tomato. In return for which he produced a HUGE Cadburys choc bar form the stash of them (stored stacked like stolen gold ingots) in his boot! Good deal!
We drove on between wooded peaks with the occasional stream, waterfall and bridge stopping at some of the 'scenic vantage' places mainly to let Pete or Tim swap seats as they both get carsick if not driving or in front. We called up to book a place to sleep when we stopped at a random visitor centre near Haast bridge. The posh hotel Brian fancied was full so we ended up in a cabin nearby, and drove on over the bridge. Most of the regular bridges were 1 way so the fun bit was noticing if we had priority or not and if any oncoming traffic was going to pay attention to that in the 1st place! All the rivers and streams have HUGE dry stoney valleys , wide massive things with a few tiny streams and patches of deeper flat water braided through them.
The forests really changed; lots of giant tree ferns and other ferny type things; far greener than the mountains we had been driving through. Pte demonstrated that if we mislaid Finley we'd never see him as the babygrwos I dyed green were perfect camouflage....
Road kill became more regular as we headed north along the west coast; at one point a huge bird of prey rose so slowly form a fresh possum pancake that we had to swerve not to hit it. I think it was an Australasian harrier but it was MASSIVE - wings wider than the car windscreen! maybe it was an Australasian Harrier, they are giant ...
We noticed that the isolated farms and small villages started having funky driftwood fences and sculptures - and soon saw why! The mountain road high above the coast gave way to flatter valleys with peaks on the coast side, then opened into a lovely but very windy bay. This was Bruce Bay- we got out to stretch our legs, and found that along with he huge drifts of driftwood, the stone pilers had been at work again. I LOVED one of the water-stripped tree trunks, I want it!
Bit big for a suitcase or even a roof-rack!
H was fascinated by the bits of mica that flaked off some of the rocks. I recall that in the Natural History Museum there was an exhibit where big sheets of it were shown to make ancient miners widows.
We drove into Fox Glacier near dusk, and it was lucky we had booked ahead - ALL the hotels/ camp sites had no vacancy signs up! The 'town' is basically a T-junction with bout 5 cafes, 1 shop, the Glacier Trek place and the helicopter/ glacier plane booths. Apart from a garage the rest is motels and camping places. We discovered our little cabin could sleep at least 10 - 2 double rooms, 1 with an extra set of bunks, and 2 sets of bunks in the main cabin bit. Not very warm, more like a thin mobile home, but great and a very reasonable option!
On getting settled in, vital things like beer was fetched for the boys; Heather was doing laundry. Finley is starting to stare at anything any adult eats or drinks, and sadly Brian let him sniff, then lick, then gum (with gusto) his beer bottle. I'm hoping its the cold glass soothing his sore teething gums rather than an early alcohol addiction.
We had a very late supper in the local bar/restauraunt, lots of meat and the only bit of their AMAZING Mississippi Mud pie Chocolate death cake they had left! (Slight hiccup was when they forgot to put through Petes order so he was sharing ours until his arrived much later but we got his dish free!). Finley fell asleep and dozed through the racket of the bar in his car chair, after amusing the locals (Brian told them he was a leprechaun on tour who loved his wee All Black's Beanie. Which was useful - quite nippy at that altitude!
Dinner Fox Glacier - Brian persuaded other tables Finley was a leprechaun on tour...
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin
Dinner Fox Glacier - last bit of Death by Chocolate Mud cake - we reserved it!
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin
Well they left to meet their guides in the Glacier centre/ shop nice and early after a quick breakfst in our chilly little static caravan/ lodge thing. There they got kitted out with coats, hats etc if the guides thought their own gear wasn't up to scratch. And left in the vintage buses that are part of the 'experience'.
Apparantly on the short bus trip to the start of the walk, the guide asked them if they had their crampons on the bus and there was a bit of panic as they didn't....but most realised it was a joke and that vital bit of equipment was already on the bus! One of their gyides siad he was related to Sherpa tensing and would be climbing Everest soon but again they were not sure if that was true. I need to get Pete or someone to give details on the actual day as I wasn't there...
Finley and I were allowed to check into the posh hotel at 10 am (instead of 4 pm!). Most of the shops/ cafes were shut, the hotel's internet suite was being fixed, and I had walked arounf enough with Filey in the sling to get a bit of a sore back, so I went back to our room and tried to watch TV. Obviously not a huge amount if people do this in NZ (they all get satellite for the ports I think), or at least in Fox Glacier, as there were only 2 channels. 1 seemed to be continuous health & beauty promotions and the other was a sort of 'This Morning with' type show with lots of terrible soap dramas- yik! Finley agreed.
Finleys 1st go in a BIG cot, Fox Glacier. He didn't stay in it long...
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin
So after putting him (when he finally dozed off!) in his 1st ever 'big' cot which the hotel provided, I decided to have a bath to kill time. Not sure if it was peaty water or old pipes but the water was brown so the soap bubbles looked a bit like hot chocolate foam. All very nice until I noticed a bunch of buttons on the rim of the bath and pushed them, to discover it was a spa jet bath. Not having had one of these before I didn't realise that you shouldn't have bath bubbles in the water, and ended up with about 3 foot of foam hiding me, the buttons, the floor.... not as nice as marilyn et al made it look! I had it mostly mopped up by lunchtime, luckily the floor had a drain in it (like Hong Kong bathrooms) so bet I wasn't the 1st to flood it!
After another walk (to watch the wee prop planes taking off opposite our new hotel, to view the glaciers) I foud that nowhere would give me cash and had to order a biigish lunch to justify using my visa. We ate in a cute cafe attached to a gallery which had work from the 2 local artists who seemed to have paintings up in every shop and eaterie in the small strip of buildings that made up the town. One idea I did like is all her beach scenes were panted sky, strips of flt paua shell for sea, then beach...
Really good chowder but quite awkward to eat with Finley in the sling flapping and babbling. He finally shut up after watching me kill a wasp that kept bothering us (I blame his sticky medicine) and I rewalised he was posing and flirting with a bunch of Japanese tourists who were all taking photos of him from outside the cafe window!
It really struck me how most places we had been this trip there were NO kids, or elderly people. I suppose not many of either want to trek up glaciers, get in helicopters or surf/ snow sport....
I spent the rest of the afternoon going on short walks (to see the huge exciting tree, the church, the ferns, etc) and pestering the woman in the trek centre as to when they would be back. She said any time from 4 so I spent 2.5 hrs sat around there waiting for the trip to return. Mainly having people come up to chat because Finley had grinned at them. I could hear the radios babbling as the guides, airplanes and helicopters all talked to each other, and was quite confused by one pilot who kept asking if he needed to 'strap on a biscuit'. Turned out he had to go collect some ice climbers and wasn't sure how much gear they would need to fit in his helicopter - biscuit being NZ for a large carryinf basket hug under the plane!
I wanted to be able to give Brian & co the car keys as soon as they arrived, so they could collect their gear and go straight to their rooms for a nice bath, rather than having to find me and return to the car. We won't blame Brian etc (who allegedly kept wandering off for photos), the trip did say it could be 5 or 6 hours but I think they were more like 7! I was staring to worry! When they finally DID arrive back, tired but happy, to a very smelly nappied baby (finall aslepp in the baby sling), I had creme eggs waiting for them as the shop didn't do Toblerone or brandy. I had been fending the ever-present cheeky wee sparrows off them the last few hours. Those birds are NOT shy and were even flying into the returned buses (which left doors open)to check all the seats for scraps!
As we had the poshest room, with the ante-room for the baby, we also had patio doors onto the big verandah above the main entrance, where we chilled out for a bit before tea. Brian shocked the same Japanese tourists Filey had charmed at lunch as he was letting Finley gum his beer bottle just as they arrived! Brian came round for a spa bath!
That night we ate in the hotel's buffet room, and were entertained by the incredibly tall blonde young german manager/ waiter who had been swamped with 70 people instead of the usual 20. I noticed that they either puify or ship in their table water - and serve it in glass bottle with those flip-top metal and rubber pluggy thing like Grolsch (?) bottles have. He grew up near where we lived in Germany but had been to 'Wio, Wio Dee Genewo' etc as well.
