West Coast, First Pass

The West Coast of NZ is sparsely populated and remote, no more so than the area around Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers.  Due to the recent damage caused the recent ex-cyclone, the Fox Glacier access road was blocked. 

Here is the coastal highway.  Large sections were badly eroded by the storm surge.


Notice the piles of debris on the side of the road?  These logs and limbs were washed down rivers, mostly from logging operations.  The storm washed them over the road, causing numerous blockages.


There was no way to access the Fox Glacier directly, so we drove out a ways for a viewpoint nearer to the coast.




That is some serious ice.


Another ex-cyclone was expected to make landfall late that evening.  We should have expected some closures.   We decided to visit a nearby lake which boasts a great reflection of the glacier and alps when conditions are calm.  Of course, it was closed.  Incredibly frustrating was that they did not post the closure at the track head, but put it a few hundred meters down the track!  Obviously they didn’t want to interfere with the café at the track head's business, so we wasted time parking and walking…



We decided to drive on to Franz Joseph, as our options at Fox were limited.  Of course, the Franz Josef access road was closed due to the approaching ex-cyclone, so we gave up and went to camp at a park at the Franz Josef village.  There is a private wildlife center here.  The main draw is that they breed brown kiwi (rowi) here, and have a nocturnal enclosure where you can see and hear young kiwi.  We gave it a visit as they had closed the road north due to tree fall and landslide risks. Sadly, there was no way to get a good photo of the kiwi in near complete darkness.  But they are a curious animal.  They have nostrils at the tip of their touch-sensitive beak, with the 2nd best sense of smell among all birds.  Their feathers are closer to fur, and they have whisker feathers on their heads.  They can hunt for their food in complete darkness, which includes various invertebrates, insects, etc.  Kiwis have been found in the wild who are nearly completely blind, but have no problem thriving.  They have essentially no wings, and lay an enormous egg, which is up to 25% of their body weight!
They also had a few tuatara living there, and we got a few good photos.




The following day we continued north to Greymouth.