Franz Joseph Glacier (day 41)

Still raining hard in the morning, but I'd agreed with Paula that we'd go up to the glacier whatever the weather and so I picked her up at 10am and we set up the trail that leads to the start of the glacier.  Fortunately, the weather eased somewhat and it turned out to be a pleasant and interesting walk for a couple of hours.  

After the first trail, we took a second trail to the top of Sentinel Point, which was once covered by the glacier.  This was a fairly steep and continuous walk for about twenty minutes, ending with a view of the glacier, but was nothing special.

The glacier has retreated several miles over the last hundred years, but has actually advanced over the last five years.  This is caused simply be extremely heavy snow falls in recent years, adding much more weight to the top of the glacier, thereby forcing it further down the valley.  It is no counter argument to global warming. 

When you reach the base of the glacier, there is a rope fence and a notice warning you of the danger of going any further without an experienced guide.  It is all in a National Park and everyone is free to go there, but we thought it wiser to follow the advice and so we went no further.  You really need crampons on the ice and these are provided to people who take the guided tours.  These are quite expensive and, given the state of the weather, I didn't really feel it was worthwhile to pay all that money to be in the pouring rain for seven hours or so.  With hindsight, I'm not sure that I took the right decision, but I had a pleasant day anyway.

After lunch in the pub, it started to rain really heavily again and so we thought we'd try the walk in the rainfores,t by Okarito beach.  This was recommended as a place to go if it was raining on the glacier.  We got there after about a twenty minute drive, but decided that we just couldn't face walking in the pouring rain for another three hours and so we went back to our respective lodgings for showers and a kip.

The rainforests round here are pretty impressive, with many types of flora, reaching high into the sky.  There are all sorts of strange plants, like the tree ferns and the fern-like plant that is used as the symbol on the All Blacks shirts (I must find out what it's called).

According to Jerry, many of the trees are berry-bearing, which accounts for the preponderance of finches and other like birds.  This morning he put bread on the veranda whilst we had breakfast and we had a great variety of visitors, although nothing larger than a blackbird.  He told me how last year his neighbour, a farmer, had been spraying an agent orange-type defoliant on his own land, but that some blew onto Jerry's plot and almost immediately killed all the new growth.  It also left Jerry with some ill effects, such as itching, sore-throat and eyes and disrupted sleep patterns.  He tried to get the council to take action against the farmer, but they weren't really interested, partly, he says, because of the cost, but also because most of the council are farmers and they don't want to have any interference with what they do.

There's not much more to say about this day, except that I went back to bed fairly early, ready for a 9am start for the long drive to Nelson.

To Franz Joseph Glacier (day 40)

After just three days in Queenstown, it was time to move on, this time to the Franz Joseph Glacier.  For once, I had a travelling companion, Paula, a Mexican girl I'd met on the trip to Milford Sound.   We met up in Queenstown in the morning and set off for Franz Joseph.  Despite the forecasts of rain, the weather held fair for some time and we took some lovely pictures on the way.  However, after about an hour, the rain set in and it then poured hard almost all the way for the remaining five-hours.

We finally arrived, a little downbeat, at about 3:30.  I was staying at a place about 4km short of Franz Joseph and I dropped my gear off with mine host, Jerry.  It turned out that I was the only guest and so he upgraded me to a double room with en suite shower, at no extra cost, which suited me fine.   The only problem was that he seemed decidedly odd and Paula refused all his offers of a cheaper room. 

That was fine and so, in pouring rain, we drove into town (if that's what you can call it) and eventually found Paula a place in a shared room in a hostel.  We stopped at a number of places, including the Information Centre, the YHA and the hostel that Paula finally booked into.  At each stop, I mentioned where I was staying and they would all say something like "With Jerry?", with a disbelieving look.  I couldn't get anyone to say anything other than one guy who would just say that "he's hetrosexual, at least" which I suppose was some relief. 

Eventually we ended up in the pub for something to eat and to get warm.  When I asked the barman about Jerry, he wouldn't say anything, but he just hummed the music from Deliverance!  This was all getting a bit freaky, especially when he added that Jerry came from California and that that was where Bates Motel was located.  I'd already been having visions of Antony Perkins in Psycho, so this didn't help much.

However, I reckoned that someone who'd just jumped out of an aeroplane at 15,000 feet had nothing to fear from a podgy little American (who actually turned out to be a Kiwi).  The pub offered a very good service whereby they would drive anyone who was over the limit back to their own homes, so they wouldn't be faced with closure for having served people whe were intoxicated, an offence in New Zealand.   After they took me back to Jerry's, I thought I ought to find out what he was like.  I also needed to sort out what to do for breakfast, so I banged on his door and went up to his private quarters.  He turned out to be quite an unusual man, but nothing like the weirdo the people in town had indicated.

According to Jerry, he worked as a pilot for a small airline for many years, then moved to helicopters, which he flew commerically, mostly crop-spraying.  I'm not quite sure of the timeline, but somehow he ended up being engaged to a Thai girl and hopes to marry her later in the year, once he has saved enough for the wedding.  As is common in Thailand, they take the wedding photos well before the wedding so that they can give them to the guests at the wedding.  He showed me his pictures and she certainly is a beautiful women, much younger looking than the fifty that he says she is supposed to be.

After retiring from flying helicopters, Jerry went to Thailand to tap rubber, which he has now been doing for some years.  That is where he met his wife-to-be, as she also taps rubber on the same plantation, although her main job is as a specialist Thai masseuse.  I say no more, except that I ended up quite liking Jerry, despite all the insinuations I'd heard.

The following day, I had breakfast with him and it turned out that he also has a wealth of knowledge about the local flora and fauna, the geology of the area and of weather forecasting, which I think he learnt in his time as a pilot.  All in all, I found him to be an excellent host.

My most awesome day yet (day 39)

VIDEOS AND PROPER PHOTOS TO BE ADDED, I HOPE

This was the day that, almost on impulse, I decided to pack in as much high-octane activity as I could. So it was "sod the money, this is the day of my life and I'm going to make the most of it".

My day started at 8:15 with a 15,000 feet free-fall sky dive.  After we'd driven to the airstrip and had the pre-jump briefing, we boarded the plane and slowly rose to 15,000 feet. When it came to jumping, I thought I’d be nervous as hell, but I don’t think my heart beat went up at all and I found I was totally calm when it came to the point of no return.  I think the fact that I was first to jump may have helped.  

The cloud base was at about 8,000 feet and we were way above that when it came to zero hour. We couldn't see the ground at all and maybe that helped, too. On the command from my co-jumper, I just leant forward and fell out of the plane.  After a tap on my shoulders, I let go of the jump position and spread my arms out wide. Then we just flew!  Wow!  I was Superman flying way up in the sky.

After swinging around for about 40 seconds, we dropped right through the clouds and then suddenly were hit by the most magnificent view of Lake Wakatipu, way below us. The chute opened with a bit of a jerk and we started swinging around doing some aerobatics.  I have to admit that for a while my ears were hurting and I felt a little queezy in the stomach, but the whole experience was almost orgasmic. After a couple of minutes drifting down, we landed safely back on the ground.  What an experience!  And I did buy the tee-shirt afterwards. As it turned out, I was very lucky to have been the first to jump as soon after that, the clouds closed in and they had to abandon jumping for the rest of the day.

After lunch, it was off for the Jet Boat ride on the Shotover River.  We had to dress up with life jackets, but I don't think there was ever any real danger of our falling out of the boat, unless we crashed, which always did seem a realistic proposition.

I’d never seen a jet boat before, but they are pretty amazing. They are driven by water that is pumped out under pressure in two powerful jets at the back of the boat.  I think the fact that the two jets are controlled separately gives the boat its tremendous manoeuvrability. The acceleration is fantastic and they very quickly reach 80km/hr, down narrow gorges, with vertical rocks and hangovers just inches from your head.  Quite scary. Our pilot certainly knew how to drive.  Apart from trying to scare us to death with his crazy slides into cliff faces, he also threw in a number of 360 degree turns. These were pretty impressive and you certainly had to hang on tight.  Not really scary, especially after the first time, but great fun. I guess the whole ride lasted about twenty minutes and, without doubt, knocks the spots off any pleasure ground ride I've ever seen.

Finally, it was off to the white-water rafting, in Shotover Canyon.  I had paid to go up by helicopter, but since there weren’t enough people willing to join me I had to take the bus instead.  And I’m glad I did.  The dirt road we had to take was incredible and not a little scary.  They say it's the fifteenth most dangerous road in the world and I can well believe it.  You know those emails that come round from time to time showing roads in South America that somehow just cling to the vertical surface of the cliff?  Well that’s what this was like and on a dirt road, to boot.  And we had a woman driver, sporting bright pink hair, tattoos and body piercing in places you couldn't even imagine!  She reminded me of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although she was on the large size, rather than totally emaciated.  But, boy, she knew how to drive. 

As for the rafting itself, it was truly awesome.  We were a party of seven rafts, each with four, five or six paddlers, plus the leader. In addition, there was a crazy Brazilian in a Kayak who was there to help out, if anyone got into trouble. As it turned out, his main task seemed to be to splash water over the rafters and to try to pull some of them out of the rafts. At the end, though, he had his come uppance as two of the captains grabbed him and dumped him in the barrell of disinfectant that they use to clean down the wetsuits.

When we got going on the rafts, we shot down canyons with vertical cliffs, shot over rapids and down waterfalls and finally through a 150m tunnel, barely wide enough to take the boat and carved out by gold miners in the last century.  We ended up with an almighty crash through some rapids where we were all completely soaked, but we ended up first to finish and not one of us fell out of the raft. 

But then we were captained by a long-haired Maori, who went by the name of Chief!  He seemed to like the way I was paddling and after I told him I used to row in an eight on the Thames, he seemed suitably impressed. I was all gung ho for overtaking the other boats and he started calling me "Peter the Skiffer" and "the mad Englishman". I did suggest we went on a war party with him to raid one of the other boats, but the Aussie woman who sat next to me didn't seem to like the idea! 

On the way down the river, Chief taught us various maneouvres such as the basic paddle forward, paddle back, turn left and turn right. Then he taught us how to all move to the left or all to the right in order to tilt the boat out of trouble and, finally, how to get right down in the boat in order to avoid hitting your head on overhanging rocks. I found everything easy enough, apart from the getting down bit. This involved pulling your paddle in and quickly squatting down on your haunches. I couldn't do this and it seemed to me that my legs were just too long. However, after a few tries and once Chief had let some air out of my seat to make more room, I did manage to get down sufficiently well to avoid banging my head.

We ended with hot showers and coffee and, all in all, I think the trip must have lasted about four hours and for me ended up being the highlight of a fantastic day.

Milford Sound (day 38)

Everyone said I should visit Milford Sound, so I thought I'd better book a trip - and I'm glad I did.  It was a long day, 7am to 7:15pm, but well worth it.  For me, the drive there was actually better than the boat trip on the sound itself.

The drive starts with a trip along the east side of Lake Wakatipu.  This is the lake on which my motel is situated and is truly beautiful.  The lake is S-shaped and at 80km long, is New Zealand's longest lake, although only third largest in terms of area.  The whole of this area was heavily glaciated during five separate ice ages, with ice upwards of a kilometer deep.  Glaciation cuts out deep U-shaped valleys and, since the hardness of rock in these parts means that there has been comparatively little erosion, a lot of the mountains have near vertical sides.  This applies to the lakes too, resulting in Lake Wakatipu being over 400m deep in places.  The lake actually 'breathes', in that it has a seiche (standing wave) that has a frequency of almost 27 minutes.  The seiche is caused be differences in atmospheric pressure at each end of the lake and results in the water level rising and falling by some 20cm.

The Southland area covers the south-eastern corner of the Sount Island and includes Milford Sound, but not Queenstown.  The area has a population of 100,000 people and 8m sheep.  Actually, sheep prices have been low in recent years and dairy prices relatively high.  This has resulted in many farmers switching from sheep to dairy as well as to beef production.  Venison is also becoming increasingly popular. 

There is an interesting by-product of the venison production, which I had not heard of before.  This is the deer velvet that grows on the antlers and has long been highly regarded as a health supplement in the Orient.  It is now being widely sold as a natural remedy for a number of conditions, including arthritis.  Apparently, deer have remarkable self-healing abilities, so that if a deer breaks a leg it will completely heal itself within a month.  It is thought that something in the deer antler promotes blood circulation, which is why it is good for arthritis.  I am going to try it out, whilst I am here as, apart from knee and ankle problems, one of my fingers is becoming quite stiff and sore from arthritis.  I reckon there's nothing to lose in giving it a shot.

The Southland area has a very high level of precipitation, averaging seven to eight metres (!) per year, with a recent record of over nine metres.  On one day, they had over half a metre of rain.  It actually rains on about  250 days in the year.  We were therefore lucky to have particularly good weather for our trip to Milford Sound.

This level of rainfall means that the mountain rocks are always damp, which means that lots of mosses and lichens cover the surface.  Remarkably, this provides sufficient grip for a specially adapted form of beech tree to cling to the mountain sides and most of the hills are completely covered by the beech, right up to the tree-line.  However, from time to time the trees grow to large to hang on and they then crash down the steep mountain sides, into the lake below.  As they fall, they take evertyhing in their path.  You can see quite a few of these bare patches on the sides of the hills, but they don't remain bare for long as lots of beech seedlings spring to life.  These have been lying dormant for years, just waiting for their moment, as soon as the surface is exposed.

As well as the tree avalanches, the area also suffers from a lot of rock avalanches, as well as snow avalanches, in the winter.  What I hadn't realised is that when there is a large avalanche, it causes a very strong wind.  We saw the results of one of these 'storms', where a large group of trees had been completely uprooted by the wind.

Some of the scenery is quite surreal, which is doubtless why Stephen Spielberg chose to film a lot of Jurassic Park in this area.  Also Mount Mordaw from Lord of the Rings was filmed on the mountain on which the Remarkables ski area is set.  Incidentally, I just heard that the recenty divorced Shania Twain has a house and 10,000 acres here in Queenstown, just for her and her three horses. 

For me, the best part of the day was the drive to Milford Sound, rather than the boat trip itself.  One particularly memorable place was Mirror Lakes where the water is so smooth that you get wonderful reflections of the mountains on the surface of the lakes. We were particularly lucky with the weather on the day of our trip which meant that the lakes were very smooth and our visibility, in general, was superb.  It was a little cloudy when we got to the Sound but not enough to spoil our views.

Milford Sound is a 15km long,  deeply cut inlet on the south west coast of the South Island, running into the Tasman.  Rudyard Kipling called it the eigth wonder of the world.  Being formed by glaciation, it is actually a fjord and is situated in the aptly named Fjordland National Park, New Zealand's largest. The mountains rise steeply from the sea, reaching up to to 1,500 metres.  Many waterfalls feed into the fjord and the ship's captain loved edging the prow of the ship right up to the waterfall so that the people standing at the front were soaked.

The Sound is, of course, very spectacular, but, having just come from Hoolong Bay in Vietnam, not quite up to that standard.

Christchurch to Queesntown (days 36 and 37)

I arrived in Christchurch yesterday afternoon, after a long but uneventful flight. apart from being charged for excess baggage.  Thank goodness neither the protests in Bangkok nor the fallout from the volcano affected me.  I only hope flights get back to normal soon, although I've just heard on the news that the eruption has now increased in intensity.

I must say that after the heat and the hassles of Indochina, enjoyable though it was, it was very pleasant to be back in the west.  It's funny how simple things like being able to brush your teeth with tap water suddenly count for so much!   The people in Christchurch were so friendly, too.  I only had to take out a map whilst I was on the street for someone to come up and ask if I needed help.  Christchurch itself is a rather sleepy place, where every street seems to be named after an English town or county.  I stayed on Hereford Street, which is next to Worcester Street and Gloucester Street, crossed by Oxford Terrace and close to Cambridge Terrace.

I picked up a hire car this morning and drove down to Queenstown, some 500k.  There was very little traffic apart from the odd truck, 4 by 4 or touring coach.  The roads are pretty well all single carriageway, with a speed limit of 100k/hour.  Since I had to cross the mountains that run down the centre of South Island, near Mount Cook, I expected the roads to be rather slow and I was surprised to find that the slopes were pretty gentle and mostly fairly straight.  I was therefore able to keep up a good speed and it only took six hours for the journey, including a lunch break.


After the first 200k, which was pretty flat, the scenery was very impressive, with mountains and lakes, all rather reminiscent of our Lake District.  Since it is now autumn, the colours were very pretty, with stunning mustard yellow poplars, yellowowing willows and a mixture of red, yellow and green grape vines (the leaves, not the grapes).  It was good to see that There are lots of small wineries as you approach Queenstown.  Unfortunately, I won't have time to visit them.
 
I was surprised to find that the mountains all appear to be made of sedimentary rock, which would indicate that the whole of New Zealand, or at least the South Island, must once have been under water.  Through most of the drive, warning signs were posted at all the bends giving advisory speed limits.  What I found odd, was that these all ended in five (35, 45, 55, etc.) and never in zero.  I wonder why they never think that, say, 50k/hr would be advisablk?

The motel I'm staying in is on the road into Queenstown and has stunning views over the lake.  Tomorrow I'm going on a coach tour and boat trip to Milford Sound, on everyone's advice.  Then on Thursday I've booked an all action day, including free-fall skydiving, jet boating, a helicopter ride and white-water rafting.  I only hope I don't chicken out!  I'll let you know in a later post.

Vientiane (days 33 and 34)

This was the end of Indochina, so far as I was concerned, and not a bad place to finish my touring in Asia.  Vientiane, capital of Laos, has an official population of 600,000, although our guide thought that there were actually far more than that living there.  The town itself is reasonably modern and has a comfortable feel to it, certainly more relaxed than Saigon and much more laid back than Hanoi.  As with Luang Prabang, it sits on the mighty Mekong (not the Mighty Mekon, Dan Dare fans).  At this point the river forms the border with Thailand and, at night, sitting in one of the riverside restaurants, you can see the lights of one of the Thai towns, right across the river from Vientiane.

Here's the Royal Palace (I think), a rather magnificent building:

No town in Indochina would be complete without its temples and Vientiane is no exception, boasting the nation's most potent symbol of Lao sovereignty and its most revered Buddhist site, That Luang, a religious monument, completely covered in gold.

The French influence is witnessed by the Patuxai monument, Vientiane's own Arc de Triumphe, only with an Asian touch.  This arch stands at the end of a long wide street, reminiscent of the Champs Elysee.  Predictably, it was built by the French when they used the city as their centre of operations in Indochina.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of the sign, in the middle of some shrubs, that said "No passing a grass".  "Don't Bogard the joint" maybe?  In passing, it's worth noting that the parks here, and elsewhere in Laos, are very well kept, a testament to communist rule and cheap labour, perhaps?

Also on a religious theme, there's the Haw Pha Kaew, once a royal temple that held the much valued Emerald Buddha.  Unfortunately, those nasty Siamese stole the Buddha and it is now housed in Bangkok's Grand Palace.  I don't know how true the story is, but I did see it in Bangkok, so I can only assume it's true.  The trouble is that out here there's been such a convoluted history between the countries of Indochina that there are old animosities everywhere, diaspora (or diasporas?) in every country and lots of irredentist feelings.  It's hard to know which side to believe, although it seems to me that the Cambodians are the most aggrieved, the Khmer empire having once included almost all of Indochina.  Having the fuck bombed out of them by the Americans didn't help a lot, although, in fact, Laos was bombed even more.  Without doubt, the Vietnamese are the most disliked and no one is too keen on China.  Really, knowing very little about the region, it would seem to me quite likely that there will be further wars before too long.

Whilst we were in Vientiane, we also went to the museum for unexploded mines.  This was much like the one I saw in Vietnam (or was it Cambodia?) and it left me with the same feelings of sadness and disgust.  Those poor people after all this time still losing limbs from all the cluster bombs that litter the country.  The Americans have a lot to answer for, but then we've used them too!

As it's the last time I'll be seeing them, I'll finish this posting with photos of my travelling companions, all taken on our last night out together, when we all ate dinner at one of the excellent riverside restaurants (and one of the few where I could get a decent bottle of wine).  I must say that they were a great bunch of people and we had a lot of fun together, so thanks to everyone and I hope to see some of you in the UK one day.  With apologies in advance for the spelling, they are, in order:

Shay and Lesley, from Canberra:

Peter and Pamela, from Melbourne:

Debbie, from Edmonton:

Adriana, from Brazil, but currently living in London with her husband:

Betsy, from New York:

Laurey, our guide, from Sydney:

And, just for good luck, me:

Unfortunately, Karen, also from New York, couldn't join us for dinner that night as she was suffering from a nasty bug.  I didn't get a picture of her either.  I trust you are better now, Karen.

Luang Prabang (Days 31 to 33)

If Bangkok has its redshirt protests, Luang Prabang has it's water fights. It just so happened that the three days we spent in Luang Prabang were the three days of the Laotian New Year. As a nice touch, our hotel presented us all with garlands of flowers to wear.