New Zealand Glaciers

The glaciers in New Zealand are just spectacular.  We spent two days of our trip exploring glaciers.  Our first was Cook glacier.  It is at the head of Lake Pukaki, and on the day we visited the skies were clear and the water in Lake Pukaki was an amazing glacier melt blue. We drove past it the next day and it was shrouded in clouds. 

We drove to the end of the road near the Cook glacier, but didn't actually get to it.  Instead we went up the Hooker Valley a short way and took the Hooker Valley Glacier track.

It involved crossing another swing bridge and it was a very windy day, so I am not letting go of the bridge.

But the view was worth the walk.

Then we went down another valley to see the Tasman valley glacier. After a climb up a large number of steps we were rewarded with this view of the melting edge of the glacier under the very small red arrow. This glacial lake is a little muddier because it gets mud and rock dropped by the glacier as it melts.

We visited another set of glaciers after out Milford track hike.  I was not in the mood to do a lot more hiking after that, but the 10 KM walk around the Rob Roy glacier sounded like it would be OK.  We drove down a beautiful River valley toward the Mt. Avalanche glacier which was another beauty.

We had to make 7 creek crossings on a dirt road to get to the Rob Roy trail head. The trail was fine for the first kilometer.

We wandered along a grassy meadow on a flat trail.  Then we got to the beginning of the actual trail.

And we proceeded to climb up the hill behind me.  It was three kilometers to the first lookout, which provided all that I really wanted to see of the Rob Roy glacier.

Calvin went to the second look out another kilometer up hill, so this is what he saw.

I like this picture of Calvin at the Matukituki River bridge, but

 I'm not exactly sure where the bridge was.  Some where in the Mt. Aspiring National Park

And we still missed a lot of glaciers in New Zealand!

On the road in the North Island

Every day we spent in New Zealand was an adventure, but I can't really imagine stretching this out to 30 blog posts, so here are just a few additional highlights from the North Island.

You can't visit New Zealand without visiting the glow worm caves. We visited the fairly small Kawiti cave on the north island.  Glow worms look a little like maggots in regular light, but are bioluminescent in damp dark caves.  Only a few populations exist in the world mainly in New Zealand and Australia.  They eventually hatch into a two winged insect, but they lack a digestive system as an adult, so they die after a couple of days.  This is the cave entrance.  

You can't take pictures inside the cave, but I borrowed this picture from their website, which is pretty much what we saw. 

We spent an afternoon in Napier. The city was almost completely destroyed in an earthquake in 1931.  They rebuilt the city in what was then the most modern style, Art Decco.  Today it is a nice tourist destination.  We wandered the beachfront and city street and had a nice lunch there.

Near Lake Taupo we took a hike to Huka Falls, which was just spectacular.  The Waikato River originates from Lake Taupo and just before Huka Falls it narrows from 100 meters across to 15 meters.

Eventually it makes its way to Hamilton, where there is a lovely river walk through down town.

The last stop on the North Island is Wellington. We had a lovely view of the harbor from our apartment.

We had a few hours before we boarded the ferry to the south island so we wandered into the Te Papa museum. It was a beautiful free museum celebrating Maori culture and well as New Zealand history.

Their featured display was the history of New Zealand's participation in the Battle of Gallipoli. It was pretty sobering recognizing the loss of life during that 8 month campaign.

One thing we saw in almost every small town we visited was a war memorial.

It makes you think twice about dropping bombs.

Milford Sound

Milford Sound, which is really a fjord not a sound, has been called the 8th wonder of the world.  Our final day of the Milford Track was a tour of the Sound.  It is truly a spectacular place, but pictures just do not convey the majesty. We took a large tour boat and the weather was nice enough that we could be outside for the trip.

There isn't really a lot to do on a boat but take pictures, so we took a few.  You can tell that I am happy not to be hiking.

This gives you a little idea how immense the mountains are compared to a boat.

And a  couple more of us.

a little more scenery

This is the mouth of the sound looking out to the open ocean

Just one more of us

This area of New Zealand was experiencing a relative drought.  It hadn't rained in a bout ten days, so the waterfalls were not as spectacular as some pictures I have seen, but they were still pretty good.

The captain managed to get us close enough to feel the spray.

It was a really nice way to end the hike.