Today we had determined to see Franz Joseph glacier and do a lot of the hikes in the area. We wanted to get to the glacier in the morning since every afternoon the clouds rolls in and block your view of the mountains, so we made to sure to be up by 8:00am. When we arrived at the glacier, the sign said that the entire hike to the glacier viewpoint and back was an hour and a half, so we had expected a challenging little hike to start off with. We quickly found out that the majority of visitors to New Zealand are not at the height of fitness. The approximate times are really geared towards people over 60, so we made it there in no time. I was sad that you couldn't get closer to the glacier- they had ropes put up to prevent people from hiking any further up but there was clearly a trail to a better viewpoint beyond the ropes. I decided that I was going under the ropes to get a better look. Alyssa decided not to come with me and went to sit on a rock that had a decent view. Sometimes I feel like I am channelling our father and she is channelling our mother when it comes down to these decisions, hahaha.
When I got to the next view point, I could see the glacier much clearer. Obviously other people do exactly what I did because there was another set of ropes blocking me from going further and signs warning that you will die in an ice collapse if you try.
Since I had gotten some decent pictures, I decided to turn back and meet up with Alyssa. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting from the glacier but I was a little disappointed by it. It is a massive block of ice, but I really wanted to get a view from above so that I could see the full scale of it. And I wanted to walk on it. Apparently the glaciers have been receding for the past 18,000 years due to a warming climate. They used to extend all the way to the ocean but are now 19km from the water. You used to be able to do day hikes on the Franz Joseph glacier but in recent years it has receded so much that there is no longer a safe access point onto the ice. You can still access it via heli-hike which Alyssa and I really wanted to do, but at over $400 it was a bit outside of our budget.
We left the glacier and walked back down to where the path started. There was another short walk called "End of the forest walk" we could do from the same path, so we did that hike as well to a higher viewpoint.
Then, we left the glacier to do some rainforest hikes that had views of the glacier as well as the ocean. The south island has a temperate rainforest which had the strangest foliage I've ever seen. It was a mix of pine trees, ferns, bushes and tropical trees. There was really no knowing what you might come across; it was as if any type of plant could life there.
There were two hikes we wanted to do here: The Okarito costal walk (3 1/2 hours) and the viewpoint walk (40 minutes). We started with the Okarito walk because the viewpoint walk broke off from it about 30 minutes up the trail and then you could continue back on the Okarito when you came back down. From the viewpoint, there were really great views of the oceans as well as the mountains.
We climbed down from the viewpoint and continued our hike up the Okarito trail. This was more of a hike than the others as there were very steep inclines and declines. We didn't see any other people on the entire hike which led me to believe it wasn't suitable for the older visitors. There are two parts to the Okarito trail: the pack track and the costal walk. When we finished the pack track, we ended up overlooking a black sand beach. There was a bridge that crossed from our mountain down to the beach but it had a sign saying it was closed for repairs. I thought it looked plenty sturdy and so we decided to cross it anyways (I was very proud of Alyssa for this).
In my opinion, the bridge couldn't have been more sound- I have the feeling they just didn't want people going to the beach for some reason. We walked over to the black sand beach to check it out and take a break for lunch. As we approached the beach, we saw a strange black bird. We thought he was interesting so we approached it to get a picture.
It started cawing like crazy and suddenly there were two of them. Before we knew what was happening, they were airborne and dive bombing us. I wish I could have gotten it on video because it had to have been the funniest thing in the world to watch. Alyssa and I were half freaked out and half hysterical. We could not believe how unafraid these birds were, literally trying to attack us. It was like being in a Hitchcock movie. Finally, they landed about 50ft from us and were keeping a watchful eye.
I picked up a big stick and resolved to smack them right in the face with it if they tried that again. Alyssa walked down to the water to feel how cold it was but when she returned, she had a big handful of wet sand. I watched as she chased after the birds with the sand. They suddenly were totally fearful of her and flew over to a stick on the beach and cowered under it. It was hysterical because the stick they were hiding beneath was not big at all and they were hiding under it like we wouldn't be able to see them.
We hung out for a bit longer at the beach with no further bird incident and then made our way back across the bridge. We found a sign on the other side that said the second half of the Okarito walk along the coast had been closed because it was impassible due to erosion. We both shrugged and decided we were going to do it anyways. For me, it was a full day of rule breaking!
As we descended down to the beach, the path disappeared and we were just walking along the shore with the cliff face on the other side. It was perfectly passable unless it was high tide, so we had no problem. As we walked, I couldn't help but notice how interesting the rocks were on the beach. The entire beach was covered with rocks of different colors, all striated with minerals. Some even glittered like they had Formica in them. I wanted to take some with me but then I really would have rocks in my bag to account for how heavy it is.
As we walked along the beach, there was no one out there as far as we could see. We talked about how lucky we were to be able to be out on a deserted black sand beach in the middle of New Zealand. Just then, Alyssa spotted a seal up on the rocks. He was so cute and seemed confused by our presence. We watched him for a while until he lost interest in us and went back to sleep.
We finally made it back to the parking lot and decided that 7 hours of hiking was enough for us. We headed back to the hostel just in time for the evening soup. Luckily, the chef had been made aware of the pepper issue from the night before and this soup was edible. Somehow, the soup made me even more hungry than I already had been so we went off in search of a cheap restaurant. There were only 5 restaurants in town since Franz Joseph is very small and although many of the restaurants promote backpacker meals, their cheapest options are still $20. Plus, it was some holiday we'd never heard of so they were adding a 15-20% surcharge to all meals. Finally, we got annoyed with the prices and went to the store to buy some pasta. Pasta is always the cheapest meal in any country and that way we could also afford to split a bottle of wine, lol. There were apparently some night clubs in town but that sounded ridiculous to us so since we didn't have any roommates in our room, we just stayed in and watched some movies on TV.
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