clog blog: New Zealand: Franz Josef, Lindis Pass and the Hooker Valley Track

Our journey continued south along the West Coast from Punakaiki to Franz Josef via Hokitika. Hokitika is a small town but there is much to see and do in the area. First stop was the National Kiwi Centre. We really wanted to see a live kiwi and thought it unlikely that we would see kiwi one in the wild on this trip, at least in part due to their shy and nocturnal nature. There are a few rescue centres where you can join a tour to see kiwi in a natural-like environment but we heard this is not guaranteed. We decided our best bet was a kiwi centre of which there are a few on the West Coast. The National Kiwi Centre only has two kiwi, one male and one female, and they live in separate enclosures. Their day/night cycle is reversed so they are active in the daytime when visitors want to see them. The room is kept in very low light to mimic nocturnal conditions and photographs are not allowed. The female was still sleeping when we visited but the male was tearing around marking his territory. Our experience of kiwi is that they are crazy birds! He was very sweet and fluffy, gorgeous colouring, quite small with an impossibly long thing beak and quite loopy. These two birds are about a year old, when they reach 5 years they will move to another centre and join a breeding program. It was lovely to see a real kiwi and we recommend visiting one of the centres in this area.

This centre also has other interesting creatures, such as long necked turtles, whitebait, tuatara, koura and about 10 female freshwater Longfin eels. We saw some eels at a distance in the Nelson Lakes so it was interesting to see them close up. Usually they don’t live in harmony in a group like this but these are all females and have lived together a long time. Overall, it was an interesting visit.

From the kiwi centre we continued to Hokitika Gorge. Fed by glaciers, the water of the gorge is usually a stunning blue colour. When glaciers move forward they grind any rocks beneath them, the resulting silt or ‘rock flour’ is very fine and light and remains in suspension in glacial river and lake water. Sunlight reflecting off the suspended rock flour is what makes the water appear blue. If the rock flour is too concentrated, the water will appear more grey. The day we visited Hokitika, the gorge was a little more grey than blue, indicating more concentrated rock flour. The gorge is really beautiful though and worth the effort of going a bit off track to visit. There are many extended walks in the area which looked great if we had a bit more time. If you plan to visit here remember to take sand fly spray!

Hokitika Gorge

The waters were more grey the day we visited indicating a higher concentration of 'rock flour'

From Hokitika we drove through a small town nearby looking for a coffee and landed up at an interesting guy’s house, thanks google maps! We loved his overgrown garden, eclectic furniture collected over a lifetime, a full pot of tea and plunger of coffee just for us, homemade berry pie all from his own garden, his enthusiasm for life, sitting on his porch in the shade with the grapevine hanging over us and having an interesting conversation about everything from where is the best place to live, to religion to growing berries. We probably spent way too much time there but it was such a refreshing change to the standard coffee shop experience and actually quite relaxing in the midst of an otherwise travel filled day. Thank you for inviting strangers into your home and just being who you are and doing what you do. We highly recommend this little gem of a café (search for Flossies in Ross, NZ). It might be a different kind of pie the day you visit but the company will be great.

It was quite a lot later than anticipated when we arrived in Franz Josef. We watched the clouds roll in and Bron in particular was really disappointed that we missed the best of the mountain views due to the cloud cover. Another delightful town with so much to see and do in the area. With less than an afternoon available, it was going to be the highlights.

Franz Josef is in the heart of glacier country with Franz Josef Glacier (named in honour of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria) and Fox Glacier (named after Sir William Fox, Prime Minister of New Zealand in the late 1800s) being the most well-known and accessible. Helicopter is the only way to get really close to and onto the glaciers. We have walked on a glacier before in Patagonia in Argentina so we skipped this budget breaking option. There are a number of walking routes to both glaciers but Franz Josef has the easiest access. We chose the 90 min return route to Franz Josef Glacier along the glacier valley floor. It was still very cloudy but we were able to peer underneath the clouds to see the glacier. The glaciers are retreating and on this route you walk the path where the glacier once was. The position of the snout of the glacier over time is signposted along the way so you can easily see the retreat of the glacier with time. Franz Josef is still an impressive sight but it must have been a mighty glacier and so close and accessible even as little as 50 years ago. Also signposted is the effect of global warming, an ever increasing world population, and human impact on the environment, so very obvious in this place; and also what you as one person can help to do about it. Very eye-opening.

Franz Josef Glacier

The glacial river formed from the melting glacier.

This is also part of the path where the glacier used to be.

Waterfalls

Glacier smoothed rocks that were once in the path of the glacier

We very much wanted to see Lake Mattheson and continued on to the township around Fox Glacier, quite a hair rising winding road! Unfortunately it was so cloudy and too windy for the mirror reflections of the mountains that Lake Mattheson is so well known for. It was a real pity and Bron especially was very disappointed. But we were still able to appreciate what a beautiful area this is and we were hopeful that more mountains would be visible in the morning, which they were, fractionally.

A peaceful scene of cows grazing under the watchfulness of Mt Cool and Mount Tasman

Not the view we were hoping for!

But worth a visit on a less photogenic day anyway.

The next day was the longest drive day of the holiday, from Franz Josef through Haast and Wanaka to Twizel in MacKenzie country. At Haast we stopped for a short walk to the 96 m high Thunder Creek Falls and drove through the Gates of Haast and on to Wanaka. The scenery around here is so beautiful, the drive is definitely part of the destination! About an hour outside of Wanaka, we stopped to visit the Blue Pools. An easy one hour walk on a well-formed track trough some lovely forest takes you to the aptly named Blue Pools. The whole valley is just gorgeous. You could easily spend hours soaking in the scenery and serenity of the nature here. You can swim here if you would like to, be prepared for freezing glacial waters though.

The aptly named Blue Pools

We stopped for lunch in Wanaka before continuing on to Twizel via Lindis Pass. A lunch-time favourite was to find a local bakery and so sampled many interesting pies all around the country. Lamb pies were a firm favourite as were the bakeries in Lake Taupo and Wanaka. Kiwis take their pies rather seriously and these two bakeries scooped many awards between them.

Lindis Pass was one of our favourite drives of the holiday. We are used to mountain passes being short, very steep and winding. Lindis Pass is fairly flat but also really long. It is also winding, but in a gentler meandering kind of way, like following a river. The scenery here is just beautiful, a land of dry in stark contrast to the lush forests and flowing water we had just come from and on the other side of the pass.

Lindis Pass

Bumblebee on a thistle

The draw of this area is the Mt Cook National Park, Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo. At an hours drive away, Twizel is the closest accommodation we could get to the national park. First up was the Hooker Valley Track, a very easy 11 km, 3 hour return walk along a well-formed track and across 3 swing bridges in the Hooker Valley. The scenery here is simply spectacular! One cannot overstate how beautiful and wild it is here. We just loved this track with views of Mueller Glacier almost all the way and then finally revealing Mt Cook at the end. It was another hot day but cooled the closer to Mt Cook we got. The day also started out clear but the clouds soon started drifting over from the West Coast and across Mueller Glacier and Mt Cook. It was very breezy at the glacier lake just under Mt Cook and it kept us watching and waiting for the best views and photo opportunities. We cannot recommend this track enough! Not to be overlooked is the drive from Twizel to the start of the walk along the shores of the stunning blue Lake Pukaki with Mt Cook in the distance. All round just spectacular. We really wanted to see and experience Mt Cook from both sides and it was well worth the effort of getting there.

The very photogenic Mt Cook and Lake Pukaki

Mueller Glacier on the Hooker Valley Track

Mt Cook

Mt Cook Buttercup (maybe...)

Nearby is also the Tasman Glacier View Track. A one hour return walk with some steep sections but worth it for views of the Tasman Glacier and glacier lake complete with floating ice bergs. All in all a great and worthwhile day!

Tasman Glacier and Lake

The next day was a travel day through Lindis Pass again back to Wanaka. But first a detour in the opposite direction to Lake Tekapo and the Church of the Good Shepherd. We couldn’t be so close and not go! Another hot day and more stunning views of impossibly blue lakes with the imposing and very photogenic Mt Cook in the background. The church is tiny but so beautiful and such a gorgeous setting. It was unfortunately quite busy taking away some of the charm but we could imagine how beautiful and serene it must be on a calm spring day when the lupins are in flower.