Bushman’s Museum ; Franz Joseph Glacier ; Fox Glacier ; Gillespie’s Beach to Galway Beach seal colony walk

(posted from Lake Matheson Cafe near Fox Glacier, NZ)
(This post covers 23 - 25 February, 2013)

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Monday, 25 February -

Today our challenge was walking to the seal colony at Galway Beach. The sign at Gillespie’s Beach says it’s a three-and-a-half hour round-trip walk and we expect this may be extra challenging because of sandflies and soft going in the sandy beach portion of the walk.
We had done something like 16,500 steps in our walks to the glaciers yesterday and this would be significantly more.
After a very restful night we got underway walking at 0830. We followed a trail behind the dunes for 20 minutes, then crossed to the beach. The going was very tough on the upper beach because it’s soft, deep sand and on the mid-beach because it’s all smooth stones, varying from pea-gravel to four inches in diameter--- but all deep and shifting under us as we walk.
But there was a narrow band of hard-packed sand right at the water’s edge. We just had to dance out of the way of the waves rushing in occasionally to cover all of that sand.
We followed that beach for three-quarters of a mile and came to huge overhanging point above us and a lagoon stretching off inland. It soon became clear we couldn’t stay on the beach because it was getting narrower and narrower and filled with more and more rocks. We had missed a turn.
However, we had the great good fortune to see seals nearby. Good thing we missed the turn!
We took photos and noticed a younger seal come out of the water. We tried to get closer and were doing well, we thought, when it gave a piteous bark. We were beside a large rock and as we passed that rock we saw what the young one was barking at.... it’s mom sunning itself on the rock beside us.... within about ten feet of us.
We had been warned not to get between a seal and the water and that’s exactly where we were when we saw the mother seal. But mom was very cool about it and we got some great photos.
As we turned back to leave, we saw dolphins swimming nearby. They were Hectors, just like the ones we had swum with at Akaroa. They seemed to be just passing through but were very close to shore.
We turned back and went up along the lagoon to rejoin the track to the seal colony. We had already done well with our photos but now wanted a bush-walk.
We followed the bush track as it slowly climbed the high ground behind the very high bluffs we had seen. We crossed the high land and then had made a steep descent, part of it on steps so steep we had to turn around and descend backwards so our feet would have enough step.
Once back down at beach level we still had a quarter mile of stone-only beach to get to the seal colony. We saw only about a dozen seals altogether at the colony and this time luck wasn’t with us. We couldn’t get any good photos there.
We returned to the base of the hill and checked the time. We were just about to start back and we had already walked for three and a half hours (with the detour).
The trip back was a push. We ran out of water shortly after leaving the far end and the steep climb off Galway Beach took a lot out of us.
But we soldiered on and got back to the van after six hours, 24,500 steps, 10+ miles, and 64 stories of stairs (according to the Fitbit).
After recovering a bit in the van, we drove back to Fox Glacier town. The sink in the van was refusing to drain so I thought we’d go to a dump station and I’d use a hose to try to get it working. Andrew had told us a previous customer had jammed up the grey-water tank with food particles and he thought he had gotten it fixed.
I did get the system working but it’s not clear it’s going to stay working.
We then drove to the nearby Lake Matheson cafe and took a coffee break before heading to the nearby Clearwater Bridge freedom-camping spot.
After supper I caught up the blog and Labashi used her laptop to take a close look at the photos we took today.

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Sunday, 24 February -

This morning we left our campsite along the road to Franz Joseph town and headed on into the town. We took a quick tour of the visitor center but decided we had better get on out to the glacier this morning rather than wait for the crowds to gather.
We drove a few K south of town to cross the single-lane bridge then another 4k to the parking lot, arriving shortly after 0900. We then walked the Franz Joseph Glacier Valley walk. We had a perfect summer sun for our walk and took our time walking through the valley, impressive on all sides. In the distance we could see the pretty white snow of the upper glacier and the gravel-covered grey of the lower glacier. The riverbed of smooth stones was mostly dry but where water flowed it was granite-flour gray in color. High on the walls, water cascaded down, making small rainbows with their mists.
We took lots of pictures of Kokopelli with the various backgrounds of the valley and worked our way as close to the glacier face as possible. We were surprised to find a large arch of blue ice at the base of the glacier and it took us a minute to reconcile the scale of what we were seeing. What we at first took for a large pile of gravel was actually blue glacier ice covered with a foot or so of gravel, insulating and preserving the ice.
The trail only approaches the face of the glacier within a few hundred yards. It’s too dangerous to get closer.
We then returned pretty much via the same path but our perspective was very different looking down-valley. Our walk took a bit under two hours.
After the walk, we stopped at the Lake Wombat trailhead for a leisurely lunch, then went back to town and the dump station. At the dump station we met Wayne and Maree, an Australian farming couple about our own age. We had a quick chat while Wayne tended to his rental motor-home’s duties, then took our turn.
Around 1400 we drove on to the Fox Glacier and walked to its face. This was about a 70-minute walk but a lot of it was quite steep and the Fitbit racked up the stair-count.
The face of the Fox Glacier could be approached closer but the steep part came in when the trail took us above it for a view down at it. Shortly after we left the highest vantage point we heard an odd sound which took a minute to recognize. A small rockslide had started on the far side of the glacier. We had just missed seeing it. I had been filming there not ten minutes before. We’ll certainly remember the sound, though. At first there was just an odd clacking sound... the rocks hitting each other.... then a sudden rush and the resulting crash as the rocks hit the bottom of the defile. Very impressive.
On the way back to the van we were asked by two DOC employees to fill out a survey form. It turned out to be asking our opinion about the sight-seeing flights over the glacier. We guessed we had seen something like eight of them in the hour we were walking and they seemed to stay high up above the valley walls so they didn’t seem intrusive at all. At the Franz Joseph glacier, though, the sight-seeing helicopters seemed to be in a constant flight pattern, two coming up valley, one down close to the glacier, and one returning down-valley on the other side, pretty much all the time. Those were a bit annoying. I wouldn’t want to deny local companies their livelihood over it, though.
After our second walk we were quite tired and headed into the little town of Fox Glacier for a coffee at the local cafe and a short visit to the general store for a few essentials and a bottle of wine.
We then drove west out of Fox Glacier to a 12k dirt road to Gillespies Beach. This is another old gold-mining area but it’s right on the Tasman Sea. The gold mining was largely done by a massive dredge which churned through all the land just behind the dunes, extracting the gold as it went.
Today it’s difficult to tell there was gold mining here. Everything is covered in thick vegetation. The walk to the beach is through a tunnel of vegetation and the beach itself is pristine and goes on forever.
The campground/car park at Gillespie’s is simply the latter--- a parking lot--- and a relatively small one at that. There’s a grassy area nearby for tents but the only thing that tells you there’s camping is a sign at the entrance to the lot, cars go to the right, campervans go left. There are no tables or fireplaces but there is a ‘longdrop’ (pit toilet) and beside it, a smallish water tank.
Not long after we settled in we saw Wayne and Maree come in and select a spot. Maree came over a bit later and invited us to come have a little wine-and-cheese snack with them.
We spent a wonderful evening with them and laughed our way through two and half bottles of wine, several cheeses, a bag of tortilla chips, and a container of hummus. Wayne and Maree are farmers of rapeseed (canola), wheat, and beef cattle on a farm 200 miles west of Sydney. They have a 27-year-old daughter who’s on track to become a pediatrician. Wayne is further into ‘agri-politics’ than he likes but it sometimes gives him the opportunity to visit other agri-business places.
As darkness approached (and the wine ran out) we bid a fond farewell to each other and exchanged addresses. Back at our van we decided we didn’t need anything else for supper and turned in.

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Saturday, 23 February -

After breakfast we left Lake Mahinapua to return to Hokitika for showers and internet service.
We had showers at the local (indoor) swimming pool, $3 per person. The shower room was a massive open room, about 24 x 30 with benches around the edge and hooks for your clothes. In the corner was a small anteroom with two shower pipes dangling down from an overhead pipe. I can’t imagine how this works for a largish swim team. Apparently two guys start showering and the other guys line up for their turn. This morning, though, I was the only person there.
I had my doubts about this arrangement but one push on the pop-out button and water began to flow, quickly turning warm and making for a very nice shower. The pop-out button would come out every minute or so but all you had to do was push it back in for another minute. The water was very soft and wonderful.
After I finished I walked across the street to a Saturday-morning open market, here a matter of only 20 or so tables selling veggies, breads, knitted goods, artwork, and of course the thing the town is famous for--- jade--- in many different forms.
I talked at some length to a jade-seller who of course recognized I was an outsider. As we talked he said he had never been out of New Zealand and didn’t intend to go. He says the West coast of New Zealand and particularly the Hokitaki area, are perfect. He has a four minute walk to a pristine beach, a 20 minute drive to hunting, and the climate doesn’t vary more than 8 to 10 degrees (Celsius) throughout the year.
I asked if it snows here and he said they will very occasionally get flurries. The town doesn’t own a snowplow. Yet I can see snow-covered peaks from here even now in late summer.
By that time Labashi was out from her shower so we drove around the corner to the library. We connected very easily (for once) and the wi-fi was free. This was the first time we had free wi-fi. Normally it’s $2 - 3$ a half hour or more.
I uploaded a blog update and Labashi sent out some pictures. We’ve been having problems with our mail flowing since arriving in New Zealand and our ISP at home appears to have gotten to my trouble ticket and gotten that fixed.
When mail wasn’t coming in or going out, we were still able to see mail if we logged on to the webmail version of our account. But the problem with that is you have the paid-wi-fi clock counting down very quickly as you read an email online and try to compose a quick reply. When mail is flowing to our laptops we can get the mail quickly, log off, read and compose multiple replies, if necessary, then connect again for the outbox to flow. Anyway, it seems to be working properly now.
We had a ‘ficelle’ at the Cafe de Paris for lunch. A ficelle is a small baguette split lengthwise and filled with New Zealand bacon (more like ham than our bacon at home), pineapple, and brie cheese, then toasted. I could do those for lunch EVERYday. Cost is $7.80 but we split it so that makes for a cheap lunch here.
Oh, yeah, speaking of prices.... gas is NZ$2.22 a liter minimum (I just paid $2.45 this afternoon). That’s at least $8.88 a gallon. With the conversion, that’s over $8.00 US per gallon. If I’ve figured my mileage correctly, I’m getting 19 mpg highway on the old (2004) HiAce campervan.
After lunch we drove south our of Hokitika. About a 1/2 south we stopped in the gold-mining town of Ross to use their dump-and-water-up facility since we’re not sure we’ll see another for awhile.
Next was Pukekura for the Bushman’s Museum and Wild Foods Cafe at Pukekura. I expected this to be a classic tourist trap. It advertised wild game and claimed to sell possum pies. It had a motto-- “You kill’em, we grill’em”.
Actually, though, it’s a museum to celebrate New Zealand’s last frontier of adventure... deer hunting by helicopter.
The film tells an incredible story. Animals were introduced to New Zealand in the form of possums, stoats (ermines, I think), several species of deer, chamois, and other goat-like ‘sporting’ animals. The new animals threw off the balance of nature. The possums and stoats killed off many of the birds and the deer multiplied so quickly that they were out-competing the cattle and sheep for the good forage. They were declared enemies of the country.
New Zealand also had developed a taste for venison and for decorative horns. By the early ‘70s venison was bringing over $1 a pound. To fill the demand, hunters soon had to innovate. The innovation came in the form of hunting from helicopters. That included shooting deer from helicopters and, later, capturing deer live via net guns.
Before the development of the net guns, though, men would wrangle down deer by leaping on them from helicopters. The film showed footage of guys standing on the right skid of the chopper as it pursued a deer, all very close to the ground in high-pitch terrain, and as the chopper would get as close as it could, the guy would leap onto the running deer’s back. I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s crazy!!!
We then toured the ‘museum’, which had a little of everything. They have possums in largish cages. They are something like ours but they have a much thicker coat and a furry tail. The fur is mixed with merino wool and sold as very expensive possum-marion gloves, hats, sweaters, scarves, etc.
There’s a small trench in the floor full of green mossy growth and large (4’+) eels. And to me the best thing in the whole place were the net guns. It’s one thing to see a net-gun in the movie but these are actual net-guns used by the guys hanging onto the side of a wildly-bucking helicopter trying to get close enough to fire. And the great part is these guns are just there. You can pick them up to understand their heft and examine them in whatever detail you like. I absolutely loved it.
After the Bushman’s Museum we drove on an hour or so to Whataroa through very pretty farming country with roadsides full of ferns. Green, green, green. But the rivers are all dry or nearly so. Though the area is known for its rainfall, they’re in a drought right now. People who depend on cisterns (rainwater collection from the roof for the household water supply) are having to haul in water or pay for a water service truck to come in and fill the tank.
We topped off the gas at Whataroa and continued south. Labashi had read a novel called ‘The Bone People’ which was written by a very interesting woman at Okarita. She wanted to check out the area and it happens there’s a small community campground at Okarita Beach. We planned to spend the night there but the campground was overcrowded. In the style of New Zealand camping there are no camp sites. There’s merely a largish area, in this case more of a large turnaround, where people pull in and park, generally dividing up what space is available. But as it gets crowded, the vehicles start parking closer and closer to each other. In this case there was a space we could have claimed but it would have been within a few yards of other campervans on both sides. We’d rather not.
We moved on and consulted the New Zealand Camping app on the iPad. There was a road-side DOC campground not far off the main road. That was at Lake Mapourika. At first this seemed little more than a gravel pit-style pulloff but we found a spot well away from the other campers and situated where late-comers can’t come in close to us.
After supper I walked to the lake and then over to another campground on the same lake, just checking out the camping rigs, the foliage, the rocks, the riverbed, etc.
New Zealand is endlessly fascinating....


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