It didn’t rain all night but we were glad to have the dry camper to sleep in. Our journey today was taking us to Frans Joseph Glacier and a couple of things of note on the way were as follows.
- The beach at Bruce Bay (near Haast) – the sign about the debris and then the debris!
- The scenery – fantastic as usual. We were surprised about how far the rainforest areas spread. We had no idea that it was the predominant vegetation near the glaciers. We would have expected barren landscape
- Looking at the glaciers – they are amazing things. I was actually quite disturbed seeing the Fox Glacier. Along the road they had signs showing the position of the glacier at different years. Since 1935 the glacier had retreated about 1km! I guess it is summer but the size of the ice chunks floating down the big and swiftly moving river was amazing. They do say that the glaciers are a good indicator of global warming and I found seeing it directly quite shocking.
We booked into a spot at Frans Joseph Glacier – the town – from Haast so we didn’t have to worry too much about our arrival time. It has given us peace of mind while travelling. We arrived at the FJ Glacier for a look and took a walk to a view point called Peters Pools. While looking at the FJG we watched a helicopter fly over up towards the glacier and Mandy said “now that would be good to do!” She still hadn’t decided on a birthday present so I said let’s do it. After a bit of deliberation we decided to do a 30 minute ride over both glaciers and with a snow landing where we get a view of Mount Cook.
We are camped in beautiful camping park which is quite classy but has been left quite natural in amongst the rainforest. We even managed to eat dinner outside. I have now have some dry socks to last me the rest of the trip thanks to $4 and a tumble dryer.
Something that has been puzzling me is how the lakes get their colour over here. Well Google to the rescue and “The amazing turquoise blue colour of Lake Tekapo is created by "rock flour": the glaciers in the headwaters grind the rock into fine dust. These suspended particles in combination with the sunlight create Lake Tekapo's unique water colour.” So there you have it. 9.45 and it’s now time for bed. We have an 8am flight tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment