Waterfalls that go up and ice that flows down

Our NZ South Island road trip continues as we drive south from Wanaka to Queenstown and on to Te Anau, where we stay for a few days in a backpackers hostel. As a family, we are the oldest and youngest in the place as the vast majority are 20-something backpackers. It’s a fun atmosphere, with everyone cooking up in very different styles in the communal kitchen. One evening we see one couple toast an entire loaf – it’s stacked high on a plate – slowly but surely they work their way through it (I couldn’t see what they were eating with their toast)!

We take a boat trip across the lake to see the glow worm cave – you’ll have to read the children’s blogs for details – but we had beautiful views with the sun on the lake and the clouds sitting like a  soft grey duvet on the mountains. It was a great success and we all enjoyed the trip to see the glow worms lighting up the cave – it’s all very well done and very atmospheric.

We had decided to go up towards Milford Sound and camp for a couple of nights, but for once the weather is not looking great and we don’t fancy putting up and taking down tents in the rain. Instead, we decide to do it as a day trip – what a good decision! I’d spoken to a woman in a shop in Te Anau about going to Milford Sound and she said that she preferred it on a rainy day to a sunny day, which I really couldn’t understand. More atmospheric, she’d said, but surely we’ll be peering into cloud? It was clear from the weather that we we’re going to get to see the rainy version – the rain gets steadily heavier through the drive there. Once we go over ‘The Divide’ the terrain changes dramatically – there are sheer rock faces with thousands of temporary waterfalls cascading down – I’ve never seen anything quite like this in my life.

We arrive at Milford Sound in the nick of time to  catch a boat trip. The boat is pretty big, holding about 450 people, although there are a lot less than that on board. Awesome is word that’s overused these days (especially by my children), but this journey up and down the fjord is certainly worthy of that description. It’s raining really hard and as we go through the narrowest point, the westerly wind hits us at over 70 knots. Nevertheless, we go out on deck to experience this spectacle as fully as possible (ok, we do go back in periodically). There are large permanent waterfalls that the boat goes directly underneath, right in the spray and once again, there are thousands of smaller, temporary waterfalls cascading down every rock face – which rise up all around us. The wind is so strong and whipped by the shape of the mountains that many of the waterfalls that come pouring off the cliff are caught and sent directly back upwards, some to the extent that none of the water hits the sea directly below. Instead, it turns upwards in a plume of spray, gradually dissolving into the clouds. The whole scene is incredibly dramatic. We’ve seen many beautiful views here in the South Island but this is truly like nothing else I’ve experienced before, so I’m quite happy to have witnessed the wet version (and even happier about our decision not to camp).

We had decided to spend a couple of days in Glenorchy, at the northern end of lake Te Anau, which is where a fair bit of the The Lord of the Rings was filmed. However, the forecast is for a couple more days of rain so we decide to head on back north and get a few miles under our belt. So, after stopping off briefly in Queenstown for lunch, we head back to Wanaka (where we stop at the New World supermarket to stock up on provisions, as we’d be warned there were going to be precious few opportunities for food shopping for the next few days) and onwards up towards the west coast. An hour or so north of Wanaka, after the road crossed a pass with stunning views back to lake Hawea, I begin to worry a little as while we’ve stocked up on food, we forgot to fill up with petrol in Wanaka and we are starting to run low – not good, particularly sat the end of a long day’s drive. Thankfully, we luck out and find a place at Makarora that not only has petrol but is a small holiday park with cabins. Rather than push our luck, we decide to stop here the night (which actually turns into two) and stay in a peculiarly angular but cosy cabin in which all the children get their own bed and has a small kitchen.

From here, we aim for a Lake Taringa, where we plan to make the most of the camping equipment we’ve borrowed from Toby & Heather for this part of the trip. But first we turn south for 50km at Haast to have a celebratory lunch at ‘The Crab Shack’ at Jackson Bay, which seems quite famous in these parts. It’s 4 years today since we met MIllie in Ethiopia, so this is her special day. It’s so special in fact that when we we’re all playing pooh sticks, Jemima, who’s stick emerges first, says that MIllie could have her stick so that she won! Jackson Bay is a tiny place and The Crab Shack is a tiny restaurant, run out of what’s effectively a permanent caravan, but the fish and chips live up to expectations and the view back across the bay is beautiful.

The setting of the campsite at Lake Taringa is beautiful, right on the edge of the lake surrounded by mountains. We make sure we’re all smothered with insect repellant to ward off the ever-present sand flies and cook up supper on our little camp stove. The campsite is a typical, albeit more popular, DOC campsite with very basic facilities. There’s a chemical loo (yuck) but no washing facilities other than the lake and the stream running into it, which was our drinking water supply. We’ve got two tents: Jemima & Gabriel sleep in the small one, with Millie between Fi & I in the bigger one. After not the best night’s sleep, we wake to a gorgeous view over the lake and tuck into breakfast. The temperature soon begins to soar as the sun comes over the mountain and hits the tents – we go for a swim while the dew dries of the tents and then it’s the not insignificant challenge of squeezing all of our stuff back into the car. The novelty of this packing has long worn off and tolerance with each other and with the children is pretty frayed, despite our beautiful surroundings. I make a mental note that given the stresses of this continual packing & unpacking, we should do everything possible to ensure a good night’s sleep and stay places at least two nights where possible!

The next stop is Fox Glacier, where we stay in a ‘Top 10’ holiday park. It’s one of chain – it has precious little charm but excellent facilities, particularly for children and ours disappear off on the pedal powered go carts that are available. We drag them away to go and see the glacier – the walk up to the face is along a barren river bed, with enormous boulders that have been left behind by the inevitably retreating glacier. We get to within 200m of the glacier face – it’s an impressive sight, with a river coming through underneath it, leaving a huge, precarious ice cave. Next to the cave, there are enormous slabs of rock buried into the face, waiting to be released by the melting ice. Not long ago it used to be possible to walk onto the glacier itself, but its inexorable retreat means that the only way onto it now is via helicopter.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast we take a short drive to Lake Mathieson where we do a lovely 1.5 hour walk around the lake. It’s beautiful, although by now the wind has picked up a bit and so the ripples on the lake prevent us from seeing the amazing reflections this lake is famous for. I resolve to get up early tomorrow (if the weather is fine) and come back. After stopping in at the fabulous coffee shop there, we carry on down the road to the coast for our picnic lunch. On the way, we happen to look back and realise we have a perfect view of the whole of Fox Glacier – wow! Now we can really see how it is flowing down the valley. We continue about 10km down an unsealed road to Gilliepies beach. When we arrive, we can’t believe our eyes – from the car park, we walk through a gap in the trees to reveal a beautiful long beach, with the usual huge driftwood and waves crashing in. But what makes this particularly special is the incredible view looking back, of the mountains behind. The beach is completely empty, so I go for a quick skinny-dip in the waves – delicious, you never regret it!

The next morning I’m up early and head back to Lake Mathieson on my own. It’s lovely and peaceful, walking around with only my own thoughts for company – the handful of other people there have obviously had the same thoughts as me as they’re all armed with cameras. I wait at one of the many viewpoints as the sky lightens – it’s serenely calm as a thin blanket of early morning mist sits gently on the lake. At around 7am, the sun starts to light up the peaks of the the mountains opposite, then about 15 minutes later it comes around the back of one of the mountains and magically cuts through mist on the lake.  It’s incredibly beautiful and I’m so glad I made the effort to come back.

Back at Top 10, we get chatting to a Danish couple who’ve got two adopted children. It turns out they’ve taken the helicopter ride to the top of the glacier. We hadn’t previously considered this extravagance but although it’s a short trip, they clearly thought it was well worth th money. We’d skipped on various other adrenalin trips that NZ is famous for (but are horribly expensive), like swimming with dolphins, skydiving, rafting – but here was something we could all do together and after further investigation we discovered that Millie could go for free. So we spontaneously decide that this it to be our one major blowout here and 15 minutes later we’re bundling the kids into the car to head for the heliport. Needless to say, the children are quite excited by the prospect!! The journey up along and to the top only takes 7-8 minutes but we get fabulous close up views of the glacier, riddled with its crevasses and seracs – goodness knows how you’d make your way up there on foot! We stop at the top and get out in our shorts and t-shirts onto the snowfield that feeds the glacier. With the expanse of white, there are no reference points to judge the size, but apparently it’s as big as Christchurch! We spend 10 minutes up there, having snowball fights and making snow angels – it’s extraordinary to be standing up here looking down at the ocean just a few miles away. Then it’s back into the chopper and back down the other side of the glacier. It was short but very, very sweet – a really memorable experience to have shared as a family (and not a bad geography lesson!)