New Zealand day 17

            The next village south of Franz Joseph is called Fox Glacier, named for the huge glacier nearby (which, as you recall is one of only three in the world that end in a subtropical rainforest).  Here, there is a postcard view of the tallest mountains in New Zealand—Mount Cook and Mount Tasman—with beautiful Lake Matheson in the foreground.  Everyone told us to go early for the view, when the lake is perfectly calm and the reflection of the peaks is clear.  So, knowing we had a long drive ahead of us today, we were up at six and ready to go by 7 for the 25 km drive to the lake.  Only, outside, the place was caked with fog.  Not shrouded.  Caked.  You could cut it with a knife.

            But all packed up and ready to go, we headed for Fox Glacier and said our prayers for the sun to lift the fog.  Halfway there, after an upward rise of a thousand feet or so, we broke through into bright sunlight.  As the cheers subsided, we noticed that below us were the thick clouds that we had just exited.  But we pressed on and, detouring to the parking area for the glacier itself, found the clouds/fog thinning enough to try the walk.  By the time we climbed to the base of the glacier, the sun had done its job and we were rewarded with a great view of this magnificent glacier and the huge milky river runoff created by the melting.  Signs were posted marking past ending points so that it is obvious this one is shrinking rapidly.  The views along the glacier canyon and of the waterfalls along the way were amazing, as usual.

 Fox Glacier

            Although it was time to get on the road south, we couldn’t resist doubling back to see if the fog was cleared from Lake Matheson and, of course, it was gone.  We hurriedly did the one-hour walk around the lake in 30 minutes, soaked up the magnificent view, and headed south.

 Cook  and Abel Tasman Mountains in the background

            We drove for hours past high waterfalls, higher snow-capped mountains, cobalt lakes 1,500 feet deep, beautiful coastal vistas, and rushing mountain rivers filled with boulders as big as school buses.  We have run out of words.  Our thesaurus has run out of synonyms.  We have seen a very few places where a person would be content to spend an entire day in one spot just drinking in the scene; the rim of the Grand Canyon and the north end of Santorini in Greece come to mind.  Standing in these places is almost a religious experience; their grandeur is almost unimaginable.  There must be dozens, if not hundreds, of such places in the southern half of the South Island of New Zealand.  You really should put this place near the top of your bucket list.

            One of the deep lakes en route

            Late in the afternoon we stopped in the town of Wanaka to buy extra minutes for the cell phone.  There, we noticed a place on the waterfront called Tango’s.  Just out of curiosity—and not because everyone seated out front was eating ice cream—we popped in to take a look.  As we drew close to the front of the crowd of waiting customers, we noticed a huge selection of ice cream on display.  The beauty of the day must have caused some disorientation on Tricia’s part, because before I could stop her, she had ordered a waffle cone with a double scoop:  one of rum raisin and one of mascarpone.  It would have been unthinkably gauche to allow her to eat alone, so I chose a more conservative regular cone of a flavor called gold.  The proprietor informed me the gold flavor was a modified hokey pokey with chips of crunchy chocolate.  It was almost as good as plain hokey pokey, the national flavor.  The mascarpone wasn’t bad, either (you knew Tricia would insist I try it); but I haven’t yet developed a taste for Italian cream cheese as ice cream.

            We finally arrived in a town called Cromwell, where we kept ourselves from asking the locals why anyone would name a town bor a brutal despot who was so hated his body was exhumed several years after his death and executed posthumously.  For some reason Pat Benatar is doing a concert at a winery near hear tomorrow night.  We will have to miss it, but instead went down to a waterfront Italian restaurant named Armando’s.  Armando was there, and the 5 servings of tapas he made for us would have been a great ending for a fantastic day.  Except for the fact that after the meal, a scoop of berry-and-coconut gelato from his freezer was a really great ending for a fantastic day.

Charlie & Tricia

©2013