Wet Coast Day
Recent comments by visitors to this site led me to go off on a tangent and read about their NZ trips.
I can’t resist reliving riding over Haast Pass or conquering the hills between Fox Glacier and Franz Josef. And today brings back even more memories of those particular areas in general.
It is pouring rain now and has been for two days. We aren’t quite in a rainforest like NZ and the rain that we got in a day is what we got in an hour in NZ.
For some reason, every time that we ventured into the Fox Glacier area, there was a bit of excitement involved all due to the weather. The two times that we were there and the sun was shining pale in comparison to the other times. One time, we just made it over the bridge just south of Fox before it was washed away. Another time, the same thing happened and the entire road south of Franz was closed. Bailey bridges were built, stranded cyclists, hikers and other tourists were helicoptered out. Fortunately, we always made it and Fox Glacier was our refuge. It was an unlit refuge, but nevertheless a refuge. We couldn’t cook and the restaurant in town with a generator quickly ran out of food as everybody scrambled there to find something to eat. I have memories of some greasy meat pies which were a lot better than nothing, especially after cycling in the heavy, cold rain from Haast.
We once had to be shuttled to Franz Josef because of downed wires, debris and flooding in the road between the two glaciers. With the road closed off, business along the way suffered and experienced difficulties restocking supplies and food.
We took our sunny days on previous trips to the glaciers for granted. We saw the reflection in Lake Matheson; we had a sunny pleasant glacier walk. That was what we thought was typical of the glacier area, until we returned and experienced the deluge. At one of the visitor centers we didn’t even react when we saw the yearly precipitation gauge that had extra numbers added for extra good measure. We looked over the 3-d model of the area and our route to Franz Josef. That was what interested us the most. How many hills would there be? How far could we go without walking? How long would it take?
We always gave ourselves an entire day to get between the two glaciers and always felt a sense of relief and great satisfaction when we made it over those three huge hills. Those climbs made the formidable sounding Mt. Hercules, the next day’s big event, an enjoyably pleasant ride in comparison. The ups and downs could be ascertained by the sounds of trucks shifting gears as they navigated Mt. Hercules. How comforting it was to hear the sound of the jake brake as the trucks finally descended the mountain.