Tag 35 - Okarito & Franz Josef Glacier

18.01.2015

If this annoying boy in the next room wasn't so loud and didn't constantly tell "mummy" what he's doing now - I could have slept in without any guilt. But the night is already over at 8:00 am. I peel myself out of bed at 9:00 am and a look outside says: clouds hang down to the ground and it's raining!

By the time I have showered and am presentable for the outside world, there are blue patches in the sky. Today I'm going to have breakfast. Now I have time and want to take advantage of it and don't have to have bread rolls with cream cheese and instant coffee again. I'm actually sitting in the sun, treating myself to toast with two eggs and two flat whites.

It's almost 12:00 pm when I know what I'm going to do now. Since the clouds are still hanging in the mountains, it doesn't make sense to drive to one of the glaciers now and Lake Matheson doesn't make sense today either. So I drive a bit on Highway 6 to the north and turn left after about 20 km towards Okarito. A tiny place located at a lagoon and behind it there is an extensive "wetland" and a small track that leads through this swamp area and the rainforest behind it.

Okarito Wetland

Okarito

The sun is now really warm, the sky is blue - at least here on the coast. A great rainforest. And after the masses of water that came down here today, small streams gurgle everywhere and water drips abundantly from the mosses on the slopes.

I walk this deserted track for about 1.5 hours. Since I didn't look at the tide plan that was hanging at the beginning, I turn around when it goes downhill. Not that I get surprised by the tide at some point. I finally see and photograph a Tui. The bird has a striking tuft of white feathers under its beak and is usually so busy that you can't photograph it.

Tui

This one always zooms back and forth in the still red flowering flax and dips its beak into it. He collects honey here. I drive briefly to the beach, which is very stony. But endless! Completely wild and right behind it the steep coastline rises. Simply wonderful. Okarito is also located on a lagoon, which I am now driving to.

Countless Oystercatchers are pecking here in the mudflats and quarreling with each other. So many at once! Until I saw a nesting oystercatcher on the Marlborough Sound drive, I had never seen one in the wild in my life. And now there are easily 20 of them standing around here.

The clouds are still hanging in the mountains, but now I only have two options: Either I drive to the Franz Josef Glacier or I try again with patience and look for a viewpoint behind Lake Matheson and hope that it clears up and then I can see Mount Cook and Mount Tasman from there. Since I have to drive through Franz Josef anyway, I drive the 4 km to the parking lot where the hiking trails start. The sign says that the path to the glacier tongue is okay at the moment, but can deteriorate. I start walking and can decide how far I want to go. You can already see the glacier from the parking lot, but it is about 2 km away from here and the path there leads through a forest for about fifteen minutes. Then you stand above the dry glacier bed and from there the second part starts. It is a bit uneven and you have to watch where you step. It is mostly over rocks and pebbles and several waterfalls rush down the slopes, which now have a lot of water after the rain. Just before the end of the path to the glacier, it goes uphill and there are already large blocks of ice lying next to me, which look like rocks on the surface. On the route, you come about 2 km towards the glacier, maybe on 400 m close to the glacier tongue, which has dramatically retreated in the last 5 years. Accordingly, the drainage from the glacier has increased. It is terrible to see.

The way back is already cool, because the sun is a bit lower and doesn't quite reach over the slopes anymore.

I am back at the car shortly before 5:00 pm, after about 2 hours - and practically had a hiking day today. This noon in Okarito and this afternoon here at the Franz Josef Glacier. Satisfied, I drive back to Franz Josef, taking a grateful Danish with me into the village, who would otherwise have had to walk the 4 km.

I sit down somewhere in one of the three restaurants, have a beer and eat a pumpkin-feta salad, which somehow doesn't taste really good. While I'm in the pub where I ate last night, having another beer, I start writing my diary, go at 7:30 pm - again in the rain - two pubs further, where there is now a Maori live performance.

I watch that and then quickly retreat to the hotel. It starts pouring again. So finish typing the diary, download pictures, and chat a bit. Wonderfully lazy. Tomorrow I will continue north. Hopefully, the weather will get better there.

Daily mileage: 70 km