Going barefoot and kiwi encounters

We stayed for two nights on the west coast near the town of Franz Josef. It rained much of the time. Not surprising since the westerly winds off the Tasman sea dump eight meters of rain a year onto this part of the world. No one in this country seems to own a dryer by the way. Of all places, this rainy location could use some dryers. I don't think there are too many "good days for the drying" here, as some Irish travellers we met in Vietnam would say. Instead Kiwis for the most part seem to hang their clothes to dry on the line. We learned this time and again when we only found a washer at our accommodation. Maybe it seems strange to say, but I can't say I have hung many clothes on a line before our trip to New Zealand. It's not rocket science, but I learned on windy days that everything needs a peg or two to stay above the dirt below.

A unique custom we've noticed in New Zealand lately is people walking around barefoot. We've only seen it a few times since it's still springtime on the cooler South Island, but I understand going barefoot is more common on the north island in the summertime when it can get quite hot and humid. You won't find any North American signs here stating "No shirt, no shoes, no service". On the contrary, outside of factories and certain businesses, it's perfectly acceptable to go just about anywhere in bare feet. Children regularly go to school in bare feet, or kick off their shoes immediately after getting to school. In fact, we've seen signs in businesses asking people to remove their dirty shoes. I remember purposely going barefoot for a couple weeks in Thailand years ago when we stayed on the beach - it was a very nice feeling I recall.

We were here in the rain to visit the glaciers, so off we went. On our way we took a short jaunt from our car to see the Fox glacier from a distance, a river of ice on a steep downward slope. The next day we took the time and effort to hike through the rain a fair distance to come within a few hundred meters of the Franz Josef glacier. It took about 40 minutes to walk there, and we passed though the u-shaped valley carved out by the glacier as it retreated. For the first five or ten minutes we passed through some young forests, which have been growing ever since the glacier melted on this spot over 160 years ago. I was surprised to see nature fill in an area so quickly, which was recently just exposed rock. We next walked along a valley that had nothing in it but boulders and rocks, with cliffs on both sides. Mother Nature has not yet had time to fill in this area, which was massive, and made me think of a desolate place like the moon. We eventually crossed up and over a boulder-strewn ridge to see the blue-tinged glacier itself, covered in rocks and boulders and letting forth a river of melt water from its base. We could see boulders nearby in precarious positions, balanced on top of smaller rocks or wedged in a crack in the cliff, with a waterfall pouring down on top of it. This is one strange place, but a great location to see the power a glacier can wreck on the landscape.

On Sunday we also visited The Westcoast Wildlife Centre to see the kiwis. Kiwis are flightless, nocturnal birds, only found in New Zealand. There are five different species of kiwi, all of which are endangered due to introduced predators and habitat loss. We needed to wait for our eyes to adjust to the low light levels, but we were then able to view a Rowi, the rarest of the kiwi birds. It was quite active in its naturalised enclosure, racing back and forth looking for bugs and grubs in the undergrowth. What a strange looking bird with its long beak that looked like a straw with nostrils on the end, with big legs like a turkey on a small body. It was an endearing and odd looking creature. Too bad the birds are on the decline. They are easy prey for stoats in particular - weasels introduced to New Zealand in the late 1800's to help lower rabbit populations (another invasive species). It turned out though that the stoats found kiwis easier prey than rabbits.

Yesterday we drove north up the coast to Nelson at the northern end of the south island. We'll stay here for the next few days before ferrying to the north island. It was a nice sunny day and we enjoyed a few stops along the way. We first visited Punakaiki to take a short walk along the coast to view the limestone formations and ocean surge. There was a great path and boardwalk here to see strange limestone formations which looked like stacked pancakes, since the spaces between the limestone layers had worn away. Also interesting was watching the ocean waves roll into small coves and blow mist and air through holes, creating strange blow hole effects.

Later on we stopped in at a fur seal colony near Cape Foulwind. Not an auspicious name. I thought it might have been named this because we are downwind from the seals, but Captain Cook named it when his ship The Bounty was blown off shore at this location. After a short walk we had a great viewing platform to look down on the furry seals. We saw some young pups playing while mother seal took it easy, sunning herself on this fine day. There were a dozen or so seals milling about or lying down, and a couple of males were fighting and howling at each other, perhaps competing for the right to mate. We all enjoyed the spectacle, while the waves crashed up over the rocks, leaving great sprays of mist in the air.

Here's Catheleen and me at a stop along the west coast on a rare sunny day.