The West Coast

With the rain that fell on the last day of our Milford tramp our good luck spell of great weather was broken and the typical West coast rain and wind came back with a vengeance.  The weather proved to be a thorn in the side for our entire West coast experience.  The first day passed ok with just grey skies and some drizzle which didn't affect the short forested strolls we had planned.  We drove from Wanaka through Haast Pass, making some stops at a few nice waterfalls and one fantastically blue river gorge.  Once we hit the coast itself things began to look grim and by the time we made camp that night the spigots of the heavens were full flow.

The Blue Gorge

Driving up the West Coast highway

One of the highlights of any trip up the West coast is a visit to the Franz or Fox glaciers in Westland National Park.  Unfortunately when we arrived rain and low clouds had shut down many of the trails and obscured most of the views.  We'd also planned on doing a guided glacier walk along the top of one of the glaciers, but we learned that like many glaciers worldwide recent year's weather patterns hadn't been kind to them.  They were in heavy recession and because of that most of the snout of the glacier was covered with dirt and rock debris that had fallen from the mountainsides.  The only way to see any of the impressive colors or formations of the ice was via the premium heli-hike which we decided wasn't worth the money.  Still, even with the poor state of the glaciers it was cool to see them up close since it was the closest I'd ever been to one.  The Fox was definitely in better shape than the Franz and seeing the little dots that were the hikers on its face really gave a sense of its still impressive scale.  Plus I had the luck of spotting some more wild Kea on the trail!

People on the glacier give a sense of scale

Looking up at the lower half of the glacier 

Wild Kea!

The next morning we got up early hoping against hope that the weather would be fine and we could catch of glimpse of Lake Matheson reflecting the mountain backdrop.  Due to the tannin stained waters, the dark surface of the lake is great at reflecting the surrounding scenery like a perfect mirror, assuming of course there is no wind, rain or grey skies to speak of - tall order in a region like this.  Though the rain and winds had died down there was still of veil of grey clouds blotting out the sky and some of the higher mountain peaks.  It could have been a lot worse though and the photos and reflections turned out pretty darn good if you ask me.  See for yourself.

Lake Matheson

The northern half of the West coast continued to thwart us with less than ideal conditions, sometimes even when it was a beautiful sunny day!  

Examples: 

We had planned to walk along a low tide only beach but low tide came too early and too late to take advantage of. 

The rain that had dumped on us a few days earlier turned the usually milky blue Hokitika Gorge into a brown muddy mess.  

The unusually calm oceans neutered the impressive noises bellowed from the ocean bashing against the Punakaiki Rocks.

One of the coolest looking day walks of any in NZ was shut down two days before we'd arrived for basic trail maintenance.  

Punakaiki Rocks 

Pororari River Canyon - the coolest looking hike we couldn't do :(

Despite the imperfect conditions it was still a fun jaunt, albeit shorter than it otherwise might have been.  Kayleigh might even be thankful for it, as it got her out of a lot of walking! :)