Skydive- check, helihike- no, whale watch helicopter- coming up
Sorry haven’t updated recently, for those surreptitiously reading but not writing to me, as well as for those of you so kind as to keep in touch.
Writing today from Kaikoura, a cutesy little town near the north of South Island. Its claim to fame is marine life- swimming with dolphins is big, as is whale watching. I decided to do the helicopter viewing- they say this allows you to see the whole whale, as opposed to whale watching from a boat where you only get to see whatever pops up out of the water. Since I’ve seen plenty of whales (okay, not plenty, but more than 1 or 2) from boats, I thought I would check out what they look like from the air. Also, I’ve never been in a helicopter so this will be another little tick off the list.
After leaving Queenstown (the site of my skydiving debut) I went to Christchurch. I took a bus that went via Mt. Cook, NZ’s highest mountain. As we neared Mt. Cook, the skies opened and Mt. Cook was nowhere to be seen.
Christchurch is a pretty town but, as opposed to just about every other place in NZ, it is not the heart of adventure travel. Basically, that makes it my kind of town. Pretty much just strolled around and people watched.
Then took the Tranzalpine train to the west coast. Not so crazy about this train. The main purpose is to view the scenery of the sourthern Alps. Unfortunately, the way the train is set up there is only 1 viewing car and it gets very crowded. Of course you can do plenty of viewing out the picture windows, but if you can’t take good photos, what’s the point?!
Arrived in Greymouth and got on the bus to go south to Fox Glacier. Really stunning scenery for this trip. Unfortunately I have not uploaded any of these pictures yet, and by the time I do, I will be long out of NZ.
After we arrived in Fox Village, I went to the Alpine Guides center to find out the details of the half-day glacier hike I had booked from Christchurch. They showed me the pictures at which point I realized there was no way I was going to do this half-day hike on the glacier. You have to hike over to the glacier wearing the heavy boots they provide (okay, I could probably handle this with a lot of huffing and puffing), then you climb this rickety looking wood and rope ladder up the side of the mountain (maybe I could handle this), then you walk along a little ledge along the side of the mountain holding on to a rope handle on the mountain side of the path with nothing on the cliff side (wait! stop the presses! not happening!) I don’t do cliffs with vast drop offs on the side.
So what to do now? Looked at the other options which included a heli-hike. See Title. This cost a mere 4x the price of the half-day walk but no cliff walks included. They helicopter you up and land you right on the glacier and then they put crampons on the boots and teach you how to hike around on the ice. Figured I could probably do this.
Next day dawned totally overcast and cloudy. When I went to check in for my heli-hike I got a long briefing on the cancellation policies, how much you get back if you go up in the helicopter but it doesn’t land, etc. Decided I could like without heli-hiking after all. Ended up doing a rather simple walk from the parking area almost up to the edge of the glacier. Beautiful enough for me. Ice pictures to follow.
By the way, Fox Village is on the other side of Mt. Cook. Must report that I didn’t see Mt. Cook from Fox Village either. Reminded me of going to Alaska and never seeing Mt. McKinley, notwithstanding flying directly over it.
From Fox Glacier I took the bus back up the west coast, all the way to the top- Nelson. The trip took about 12 hours, but bus rides here are anything but difficult since the bus stops about every 1 to 2 hours, either for a snack (morning tea you know), lunch or “a wee bit” (they say that a lot here) of sightseeing. “You can have a wee walk around” One particularly gorgeous sight was for the “pancake” rock formations at Punakaiki- once again, pictures to follow.
Nelson is another really pretty little town. Known for its excellent weather- which I had, but also as a gateway to Abel Tasman National Park. I went on a really lovely all day catamaran cruise- the really big catamaran, not the teeny little kind. Weather was perfect, company pleasant, went swimming twice (they’ve been telling me how cold the water is around NZ, but Jones Beach in July is a whole lot colder than this was) and didn’t take all that many pictures.
From Nelson to Kaikoura so once again, you are all up to date.
Getting ready to leave NZ- 2 days to go. I have booked a hotel for my first night in Melbourne for a mere $200 AUD- and that was the absolute cheapest thing I could find anywhere near the center of town. I have just discovered that, in addition to it being the height of the summer holidays in the southern hemisphere, and the fact that I am arriving in Melbourne on a Friday, it is also the Australian Open! Excellent timing!
Working on the photo thing. I thought I was getting the hang of organizing my photos on flickr, but apparently not yet. At least I have learned how to get the photos from the camera to flickr, so hope you’re enjoying, even if you have no real idea what you’re looking at.
Love to all and speak to you again from Australia.
Tags: Christchurch, Fox Glacier, Kaikoura, Nelson, New Zealand, Travel
myra_n
Work with 14 year olds and you learn things. I learned how to download some Tahiti pictures and use them for my desktop wallpaper. It may be gray NYC January outside- but its the turquoise South Pacific on my classroom desktop.
Hi. In case you’re running out of stufff to do in New Zealand for the next couple days–today’s NY Times has “North Island Coast of Small Wineries and Big Pleasures.”
I couldn’t get your flickr connection last time I tried so I certainly won’t cast aspersions about your ability to upload, in fact, I don’t know whether you did or didn’t. Anyway, it all sounds very adventuresome, whether you actually did the hikes/helicopters or not. Have you seen a lot of sheep?
G’day mate!