It was a God-send: I could actually feel the sunlight warming up my hands and body.
My mood improved immensely. I could increase my speed from a pitiful 80 KM/H to 115 or 120 (I'd been going slow to lessen the wind chill). I got into Wanaka and had a short chat with the petrol attendant as I refueled. (I'd had to switch to reserve a few miles before.) I wolfed down a 'Moro' chocolate bar (a lot like a 'Mars' bar) and a coffee, then headed out.
The road to Haast is very straight to begin with. I zipped along, passing Lake Hawea. It was very pretty with the fresh snow on the rocky hills behind it. The road hugging the hills started getting curvy when without any warning sign the pavement ended and a gravel road began. I quickly dropped speed and hit the gravel. It was wet and slippery from the rain and I could feel the rear wheel fishtailing a bit. (Remember this was a street bike with tires meant for pavement, not dirt.) I had to drop my speed to about 40 KM/H before the bike settled down.
Luckily there were no cars behind me, so I didn't feel like I was holding anyone up. Try that in the Rockies! The gravel lasted for maybe twenty kilometers and I thought I'd be lucky to make it to Haast by nightfall, never mind Fox Glacier. ( I found out later that this stretch of gravel is 17.7 KM long, and that the NZ Automobile Association has been *****ing at the government for years to pave it. It's the only road between Fiordland and the west coast of the South Island.)
Quite suddenly, the pavement returned and I speed up again. Soon I was at an incredible road that was meant for motorcycles - the Haast pass. The road got *very* twisty and lead down through a v-shaped glacial valley covered with temperate rain forest: mosses, ferns and NZ's evergreen beech trees. Below was the Haast river. The sky was now blue and sunny, and the temperature had gone to 15 Celsius. There were dozens of passing bays and lookout points. Best of all, there were no cars except a very slow tour bus that I passed very easily: the bus driver was quick to pull over to the shoulder, as are all Kiwi drivers.
After about twenty minutes of this steep hairpin-turn road, I stopped and looked back up it. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I'd read that this pass was supposed to be treacherous. I thought it was easy!
The road was less twisty and steep now. It was descending west to the Tasman Sea. By now, the river was close by. The palm trees and plant life started to take on a very tropical lush look. I had to stop two or three times to take pictures.
When I reached Haast, I could see the ocean. It was a very pale turquoise. The surf was pounding on the beaches. There were many tropical plants and the coast looked like pictures of Hawaii or Mexico. I had to pass over the Haast bridge. This is a single lane bridge (like most in NZ) but it was incredibly long to pass over the Haast river delta. While crossing it, some poor guy with a purple BMW GS had lost part of his luggage and was picking it up.
While I stopped at the far end of the bridge to take a picture I saw several motorcycles go by: another BMW GS, a Suzuki DR, and a Honda TransAlp. Along the coast line, the road was again very twisty, with stupendous views of the ocean surf and tropical vegetation. The road then swing into land and headed north.
By this time I'd ridden 500 KM and I was getting tired. I had to stop about every twenty minutes or so to stretch. I finally reached Fox Glacier and checked in at the motor camp. Time: about eight hours. Distance: about 550 KM. That's only 70 KM/H on average, but I stopped often to take pictures and I had to refuel once.
One thing I haven't talked about really is the single lane bridges. These are built because there isn't enough traffic to justify a two lane bridge. They are generally first in, first out. Well, that day I must have gone over, I swear, at least four dozen of these. It gives you an idea of how many creeks and rivers there are in New Zealand.
Unfortunately, there were no takeaways in town, so I grabbed a slice of pizza at the Hobnail Cafe and brought some tea and Cup-a-Soups. The cabin I was in was very plain, but it was only $18/night (NZ). What a bargain! I decided to go on a three hour hike up the Fox Glacier the next day. I'd thought of taking the helicopter ride, but it was $80 NZ, and the hike was only $30. I had to start thinking about conserving my money. I'd spent $800 of the $1300 NZ in traveller's cheques I'd brought with me, and the trip was only half over. I had money in my chequing account, but I didn't think my bank card would work in NZ. Hokitika was the nearest town with a bank machine. If that didn't work, I should have been able to get cash advances on my VISA.
I'd been thinking about the remainder of the trip. I'd be going north to Punakaiki or Westport on day 11, then ride to Nelson on day 12. I'd cross to Wellington on 13 and probably spend 14 there. I'd then spend a day in Taupo, Rotorua and maybe Hamilton. I had to be in Auckland by day 21 to drop off the Kawasaki. I didn't think I'd make it to Napier or the Northlands. Maybe next trip!
It constantly amazed me how much bird life there was in NZ. At 8:35 PM, the sun had just set but the stars hadn't started shining yet. Sitting in my cabin with the window open, I could here dozens of small birds chirping and singing. Incredible.
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I slept reasonably well. I had to get up a couple of times to turn the electric heater on. Unfortunately, it had a timer, not a thermostat. That night I decided to move the bed over next to the heater's ON switch so that I could hit the switch without getting out of bed.
I grabbed breakfast at the Hobnail Cafe - the first real solid meal in over a day. I was so hungry I wanted to get a second helping, but then a busload of tourists arrived and I said to hell with standing in line. I do NOT stand in queues, not even for food!
I got to the hiking center and was given a pair of wool socks, good hiking boots with spikes, and crampons. We drove about five miles in a beat-up old van filled with cobwebs to a gravel parking lot near the bottom of Fox Glacier.
We (me, the guide, a couple from Singapore and a couple from Ottawa, Canada) had to hike up a very steep, difficult track up the V-shaped valley wall. I don't hike up hills much, and it was very physically demanding. By the time I got to the edge of the ice sheet, I was sweating like a pig. We then went out on the huge glacier ice field. We had to proceed slower and it was cooler, so it wasn't too bad.
All the while, the guide told a very interesting commentary on how the glacier formed and behaved. The glacier retreated by several miles from 1750 to 1985. The glacier has been growing quickly over the last eight years, going down to the sea at the rate of one foot per day.
Finally, we headed back to the van. It was quite an eyeful, but I wouldn't want to do that again any time soon. After I got back, I changed and washed my clothes (I got mud on my jeans falling into a glacial creek). I then took the motorbike down to Lake Matheson about 5 KM south of the camp. I spent 45 minutes walking a very nice trail to the far side of the lake. There was a lookout point facing the glacial valley. Unfortunately, Mount Cook and Mount Tasman were hidden from view by clouds. Grrr - I took a picture anyhow.
I went into town at 4:00 PM. The petrol station wouldn't open the next morning until 8:00 AM so I refueled. I then went to buy a meal: the Hobnail Cafe was closed and the other two restaurants in town didn't open until 6:00 PM!
I ended up making some chicken soup for dinner - yuck. I saw the weather forecast - it was supposed to be sunny for a day or two, with clouds blowing in from the Tasman in a few days.
My face was very hot: at first I thought I had a fever, but my face is sunburnt from the white surface of the glacier! I noticed that the clouds have blown away from Mt. Cook so I walked to the fields behind the motor camp and got an excellent view. I hoped the photo would be okay. (It did turn out pretty well.)
Tomorrow: Westport was roughly 300 KM away. I wanted to make one major stop along the way - at the Punakaiki 'Pancake Rocks.' I pegged the travel time at four to five hours, depending on how often I stopped.
I found something unusual that day - a two-cent coin. New Zealand got rid of both one-cent and two-cent coins a couple of years ago. A coin apparently lasts five times longer than a note, so at the same time NZ replaced the one dollar bill and two dollar bill with new coins. Now the currency is: five-cents, ten-cents, twenty-cents, fifty-cents, one dollar coin, two dollar coin, and in notes, $5, $10, $20, $50 and I think there's a $100 bill. The money is colorful like Canadian or European. It also has a watermark of the Queen of England. There's a silver metallic band in the paper similar to the British notes: the line looks like dashes, but against a light you can see the thread is solid. This is to prevent counterfeiting.
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I got up early and left by 6:45 AM. As before I wore the rain suit over my leathers. The temperature was 7 or 8 C. At first the road was straight but soon some curves came up. There were bands or stripes of clouds sitting only fifteen or twenty feet over my head - it made me feel more like I was flying an airplane than riding a motorcycle. I had to stop twice because my glasses were fogging up badly. As I rode by Lake Mapourika to my left, the fog stood like a wall over the water. I started going through a twisty position as I saw a large plume of smoke rising to the north. It turned out to be coming from the Whataroa Pulp Mill. I then rode over a long bridge on the river Whataroa, passing a school bus in the passing bay.
By now the temperature was about 14 Celsius. There were straight roads through subtropical bush alternating with hilly twisty curves. It was very beautiful with blue skies. I passed through the logging town of Hokitika and kept going north to Greymouth. Lots of logging trucks were on the road now.
Good old highway 6 was hugging the coast line all the way. The views were tremendous and I had to stop a couple of times to take pictures of the turquoise ocean surf and small rocky islands offshore. The road was separated from the ocean by only a small sandy beach and a thirty foot cliff. This area reminded me of parts of California's coast line.
When I got to Greymouth I almost took the wrong turn to Reefton, a town more inland. The roads were not well-marked and I had to make a turn off the town's main street.
At this point I reached a petrol station with the sign 'Last fuel for 100 KM.' I realized that would put me well into reserve, so I stopped and filled up. I had figured that Punakaiki would have had a petrol station.
The hilly road went through farmland and then hugged the ocean again. Soon I reached Punakaiki - the Pancake Rocks. There were a couple of cafes but sure enough, no fuel station! Here I had a clubhouse sandwich - Kiwi style. It had only one meat (a ham slice) and had deviled egg. Wierd.
Punakaiki has cliffs made of layers of limestone and mudstone. Sea erosion has worn the cliffs into strange sculptures that look much like stacks pancakes. There were a lot of terns living in the various nooks and caves. |
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