Catch Up 23 to 25 Feb

Sorry if this post is long and muddled.  We have been adding to it as we went along without the opportunity to make any new postings for a couple of days.

Wednesday 23 February

We are now in Franz Joseph staying at Westwood Lodge. The owner has told us that their Internet service is provided from ChCh and with comms in ChCh serverely disrupted by the earthquake the service is very poor. Accessing the Internet is via a subscription service and as the service is so poor we have been advised against subscribing. So we are going to update the blog on our PC and upload it if and when we find a local cafe that provides internet access. Also, we have no mobile signal at the Lodge so we can't use that either! 

We were called this morning while we were still in Queenstown by our local tour operator and advised that our hotel in ChCh is closed for at least a week, that the airport would be open on Sunday to international flights (in fact it opened this afternoon) and that the Trans Alpine railway was unlikely to be open on Friday when we are due to travel to ChCh. So we have extended our car hire and our agent has booked us into the Kingsgate Hotel in Greymouth (Tel +64 3 768 5085) for Friday night and the Huntley Lodge (Tel +64 3 348 8435), close to ChCh airport for Saturday night. So we should be leaving NZ early on Sunday morning as planned.

Blog Update

Before updating today's news, there are a couple of little bits that we forgot to mention in yesterday's blog.

When we were having a coffee in Arrowtown we got talking to a Scottish man and he was telling us that he was on a touring holiday in with farmers from all over the UK. The main object of their holiday was to visit farms throughout NZ – talk about a busman's holiday!. He explained one thing which had been puzzling us and that is why there weren't as many sheep as we expected. Dairy farming has become a lot more profitable than sheep farming mostly because milk is being made into powdered milk for the Chinese market and so sheep farmers are moving into dairy farming.

Also we forgot to mention The Remarkables! These are a very remarkable range of mountains across the lake from our hotel and Queenstown. What was most remarkable about The Remarkables while we were there was that they were remarkably difficult to see as it rained a lot and the cloud was low! Hopefully though Steve will have a photo of them to show you.

Wednesday, 23 February

After the call from Pan Pacific and the decision made for the revised itinerary, we had to go to Budget car hire at Queenstown airport to extend our car hire. In the meantime I was concerned for a couple of friends in NZ and had emailed them both. I got instant replies and good news but the most surprising thing was that one of them Maree (who I first met when we lived in London and is my all time favourite hairdresser and now a musician with the Ting Tings!) was in Queenstown. Because of the earthquake Maree's flight home to have a holiday with her family in Dunedin after touring with the band was diverted to Queenstown and believe it or not we were both at the airport at the same time. Neither of us had time to do more than have a 5 minute chat but it has to be one of the most amazing coincidences!

After leaving Queenstown airport we headed for Franz Joseph. Steve decided to take a short cut over Crown Terrace that saved us about 40km. Of slight concern was that the entrance to the road was ringed with warnings about it not being suitable for vehicles pulling trailers and this turned out to be because the first 10km consisted of a series of very tight hairpin bends as the road climbed steeply to reveal wonderful views of Queenstown in the distance below, that is until the road climbed so high that we were in the clouds! On the way down on the far side we passed a large group of tandem riders desperately trying to reach the top, many of whom had given up cycling and were pushing their bikes.

Further on the road took us past Lake Hawea on our right, quickly followed by Lake Wanaka on our left, both huge lakes. The scenery here was absolutely stunning, some of the best we have seen in NZ and that's saying something. We stopped at a view point above Lake Wanaka and were able to see Harwich Island in the distance!

Near Haast we stopped to look at the 28m (~93 ft) Thunder Creek falls that tumble into the Haast River, quite a dramatic sight. There were a lot of one lane bridges on today's route, something we rarely see in the UK, and some of the bridges (notably the one over the Haast River) were quite long. 

We are now on the West coast in Glacier Country and have had our first views of the Tasman sea. We should also be able to see the Franz Joseph Glacier and Mount Cook but unfortunately they have both been covered by cloud since we arrived. We are hoping for better luck tomorrow.

Thursday 24 February

When we woke this morning most of yesterday's cloud had cleared and we were able to see the tops of the mountains and take some pictures of their snow covered peaks. However, the forecast for the day wasn't good with low cloud and rain forecast for the afternoon. Since arriving in FJ we have learned that it has an annual rainfall of 7 to 8 metres and that on average it rains on 4 days every week, so we will be lucky to get away with out any rain today!

While we sat having a morning coffee, which we'd like to think was the same cafe where Stephanie spotted Russell Crowe when she was here a few years ago, we saw about 10 Morgans being driven through the town which was rather an unexpected treat. We didn't realise there would be that many Morgans in NZ! Steve preferred the Morgans to a world famous filmstar - I couldn't possibly comment!

We decided to book ourselves on a “Glacier Experience” tour. So this afternoon we have been up climbing on the FJ Glacier. Steve loved it and wants to go back again, but it was a first … and last for Jane. I think she must have completely forgotten that she doesn't even like ice in al shapes and forms!

We were provided with boots (wet inside), socks, waterproofs and crampons and taken by a guide onto the glacier. This was an incredible experience and not one that we will forget in a hurry (for different reasons!). The top of the glacier receives 40 meters of snow every year, it snows all year apart from January and February, and the sheer weight of the snow is causing the glacier to move at a rate of 3 to 4 meters each year, which is very quick for a glacier. The snow has a blue tinge because it absorbs all other colours. The glacier was not really like we expected because the part we walked on was not flat and smooth but had long, high spiky ridges and lots of crevices. Fortunately we had only a few spots of rain while we were out which given the local climate was pretty lucky! The whole trip took 5 hours.

On our way to the glacier we spoke to a man with a trolley full of equipment. Turns out he is a seismologist and had been taking measurements to try to better plot the line of a major fault that lies under FJ. Apparently, its one of the biggest faults under NZ and he said he wouldn't want to live in FJ so we're glad not to be staying to long!

Sorry this is a long update but as we mentioned earlier in the little blog we sent from the internet cafe this morning comms here in Frans Josef are not very good as the internet service providers are in ChCh and so obviously the service is far from normal under the circumstances. 

Friday 25 February

Not surprisingly we woke with very stiff legs!

Still no Internet access at our Hotel in FJ so we hope to publish the latest updates to the blog from our hotel in Greymouth this evening.

At breakfast we spoke to a couple who had actually been in the centre of ChCh when the earthquake happened. They were in a liquor store within sight of the cathedral and given the scale of what happened, they feel very lucky to have survived unscathed.

This morning we went back in the direction of Fox Glacier to visit Lake Matheson that has one of the most famous panoramas in NZ. Its an hour and a half's walk round the lake and at the far end, on a clear day, are unforgettable views of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook reflected in the water. It was cloudy, so we bought a postcard, enjoyed the walk though!

We've now driven to Greymouth and are settling in to our accommodation for the night. Catching up on the TV news we have just seen one of my old BT bosses being interviewed about the telecom service problems in ChCh following the earthquake! He is now the CEO of Telecom the BT equivalent in NZ. Interestingly as well as making all calls from payphone boxes free, Telecom are also asking the public to hand in any unwanted corded phones for distribution in areas without power, because the newer cordless phones need charging and the old ones don't.