New Zealand Part 3: West Coast Glaciers and Hot Springs
We’re on the South Island and are excited to be spending the rest of our time in New Zealand here! It’s been nothing short of an adventure so far - with van problems, unique hikes in the glacial areas of the West Coast, and incredible, remote camping spots.
Our time on the South Island started in Blenheim and the Marlborough area. We loved the wineries there even more than Waiheke because these were more low key and the mountain scenery was beautiful.
We continued my birthday celebrations there & stayed at a lovely airbnb with super friendly hosts. We love that this seems to be a theme here - all of our airbnbs have been little guest suites on the hosts primary property and the hosts have been so friendly & welcoming. This time he even offered to help us when one of the mirrors on the van was loose and together he and Grady got it reattached. That was only the start of the van problems ;)
The West Coast of the South Island is known for very rainy weather so it takes some flexible planning to hike and explore in those areas. We saw a short weather window clearing in a few days and decided to use that time to go up to the northernmost tip of the South Island for sunset at Wharariki Beach. It was a long drive, but the weather looked good and it would buy us some time to let the weather clear on the West Coast. It was absolutely worth the drive, even though we got a flat tire that we discovered in the parking lot of Wharariki Beach - nearly as far from major towns as you can be.
We had recent experience changing a tire on a gravel road after a flat tire on the Jeep last summer, but this time posed some different issues. The rim had seized onto the hub so even after taking the lug nuts off it didn’t come loose. Good news is there was a whole circus show to fix our tire. The kind folks in the parking lot volunteered to help and at one point I think we had 6 people helping plus a weird duck looking bird that wouldn’t get out of the way. The ring master of the circus was a retired Dutch auto mechanic who mentioned multiple times that he made it a point to never work on Japanese cars… taking jabs at our little Nissan! His expertise was so valuable though and the rim didn’t come off until the Dutch man retrieved the biggest hammer we’ve ever seen from his van to save the day - freeing the wheel from the hub.
After putting the spare tire on in the parking lot, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the beach.
It was so peaceful and honestly fairly empty walking along this picturesque beach. You might even recognize this beach from the Windows login screen photos!
With two new rear tires purchased in Nelson (the closest major town to Wharariki Beach at 2.5 hours away) we started towards the West Coast. The sea rocks were spectacular along the way and it reminded us of the rugged Oregon coast - especially with the intermittent sun shining through the coastal haze.
We explored a cool sea cave and made several other stops to appreciate the raw beauty of this coastline before continuing south. I also had my longest (& best) time driving the 5-gear manual van on the left side of the road. It’s been a sink or swim intro to stick shift driving, but I’m improving!
During our time in New Zealand we’ve always waved at other Nissan Vanettes, kind of like the Jeep wave we see off-roading sometimes, but the number of Vanettes has increased drastically on the South Island. While we still think ours is the cutest (and is one of only two we’ve seen with the cute script font) we get so excited and both wave every time we pass one. Most of the time they’re equally excited and both (or all 3) waving back. Seeing 3 in the front is always entertaining because it makes you wonder if they’re all 3 sleeping in there… it’d be very cozy that’s for sure.
We have a lot of adventures mapped out on the West Coast, but in an area that receives between 2-10 meters of rain annually (79”-394”) - we have to try and maximize every good weather window we can so we’re confident that we’ll be back in this area soon enough.
The weather forecast looked good for about 36 hours so we decided to camp on Alex Knob. This is a very popular day hike, but even though camping is permitted, it’s not a common overnight destination. The hike was beautiful. We walked through a lush, tropical jungle with incredible moss. The juxtaposition of the jungle with glacier views in the background was surreal.
There were tons of day hikers and maybe even more helicopters flying overhead. There are a lot of people who do helicopter flights over, or to, the Franz Josef Glacier nearby so during the main part of the day the air overhead was pretty busy.
We are happy with the view we got of the glacier instead :)
We were the only ones to camp up on the summit of the knob and we think the weather might have been why… The evening was spectacular to sit outside in our backpacking chairs and just enjoy the quiet vastness of the valley. Things evolved quickly though.
The night started off with Keas (Alpine Parrots) circling overhead making tons of noise, which continued until the rain started, which never stopped. Our tent site was perfect for the view and a previously used site to minimize impact to the local environment, but it was not the most suitable option for rain.
We woke up to puddles inside the floor of the tent and within the vestibules. Somehow, our Marmot tent kept us dry despite 1”/hour of rain throughout the night and wind. We quickly packed up all of our wet belongings and started to make our way down the trail as quickly as possible.
While the morning and weather for the hike out weren’t ideal, it was so worth it for the experience of being up there the evening prior. The photos don’t do it justice as it was very hard to capture the expansiveness and scale of everything in pictures!
Over some coffee & pies we decided to book a hotel in Fox Glacier that evening to dry out our clothes, tent, and gear and to take a hot shower. It was the best decision we could have made. We dried everything fully, walked to get beers at a local pub, made some calls to home, and warmed up after the cold, wet hike out. We drove around and took some moody pictures and Timelapses in the rain the next day, which went well until Grady crashed the drone into the van. I’m proud to say that as the newly minted stick shift driver of the van I was not the one at fault. We decided to continue a bit further south because it continued to rain nonstop which seems to be par for the course here.
We booked the Welcome Flat Hut on the Copland Track on a whim because the weather looked okay for the next day. We couldn’t be happier that we chose to do it. The sand flies were horrible at the parking lot which didn’t bode well for our expectations for the 6 hour hike ahead of us. The parking lot gets 2.4 stars on Google not because of the sand flies, but because Keas destroy cars in the parking lot. Kea’s eat anything, but they really like rubber and hosing on and under cars. We’ve even seen them dig their beaks into the asphalt to eat the road. Apparently in New Zealand you can buy Kea insurance, but we didn’t opt for that so we had to try and protect Ms. Stevens. We determined the windshield wipers would be a prime target for a Kea’s dinner so we removed the wiper blades before setting off on the trail. The lot was half full so we felt like the odds were in our favor. The trail starts with a river crossing that was 4 main braids to the river each maybe 25 feet wide, but less than knee deep. It felt like a cake walk after our Alaska river crossings!
The track was really cool and felt like we were walking through a rainforest - or maybe it technically was one. It had received 750 mm of rain in the past week per the hut warden, Bruce, and it showed on the trail. There were about 40 stream crossings and parts of the trail where you kind of climb up the rocks of a waterfall.
The river was so blue and the views of the mountains were stunning. We went over a bunch of swinging bridges which enabled me to conquer my fears from the last time we were in New Zealand. I’ve come so far!
When we arrived at the hut we couldn’t believe how nice it was. It was a little backcountry oasis and the most luxurious hut to-date. It was 4 bedrooms with 7-9 bunks each, a nice kitchen area and lots of tables for convos and games. The coolest part is that it’s situated at the base of some beautiful mountains and right next to these natural geothermal hot springs fed by a spring. Unlike many hot springs where the heat source is volcanic, these springs are heated by magma upwelling from a nearby tectonic plate boundary. The water is forced up from the ground and emerges at a toasty and consistent 57 degrees Celsius. It mixes with river water to create three pools of different temperatures, the hottest of which is comparable to a hot, hot tub.
The original hut was built in 1913 and it’s amazing to think that people have been doing this stuff in a similar way for so long. This was the last valley in Westland to be explored by non-native people and it was originally developed for tourism. The idea was to get tourists from Mt. Cook up and over the main divide and then put them on horseback down the waterfall track we came up to reach the glaciers of the West Coast. Needless to say based on the track condition, this plan didn’t work. The huts they’ve built though have persisted and created a tradition of recreation in the valley. We went to the hot pools upon our arrival to the hut to ensure we could enjoy them in daylight. It was fun to explore and soak in the pools after the long hike in. Our time at the pools didn’t last too long though because the sand flies found us and came to attack. Bruce joked that he’s put the sand flies on an alarm and they go away at 9:30 pm and don’t come back until 7:15 am (since sand flies are only active during the day) but we didn’t heed his advice since we wanted the views of the surrounding mountains.
We also explored this little troll hole under a bridge near the hut where Grady jumped in to rinse off all the bug spray. It was a fun little dipping pool! Plus, some of the hot pools water ran off into the river near here so the water wasn’t quite as cold.
We talked with people at the hut from Germany, Boston, Wānaka New Zealand and the Netherlands. Our hike out was perfect weather and we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the valley. This was a hike we’d planned to do, but didn’t know a lot about and it exceeded our expectations.
We went south from there over the beautiful Haast Pass to Wanaka and then Queenstown.
We went to an amazing Indian restaurant in Wanaka called Ashraf’s Kitchen that’s been operated by the same family in the same cute building for 20 years. In Queenstown we wanted to do a hike, but it was very windy (& cool) that day. When we were in college we did the Ben Lomond Hike above Queenstown and we wanted to do it again, but didn’t think it’d be a good day to be up on those ridge lines. We opted instead for a much easier, lower elevation hike called the Queenstown Hill hike with similar views. It was fun to snap a picture and compare our college pic in Queenstown to our photo today. Glad our technical layers and sense of style have improved!
From there we continued to the most welcoming freedom camp spot in Lumsden and headed off towards Milford Sound. Some fun new Kiwi expressions learned this past week or so were: Wee (little bit / opposite of heaps), half two (two thirty as in the time), knackered (worn out, heard as “I was so knackered at the top of that hike), track (trail), tramp (hike) so instead of hiking on trails it’s tramping on tracks.
Next week we’re “tramping” the renowned Milford Track and exploring around the Sound area. More soon!