Can't believe it's day 30 already .... 33% of my sabbatical is behind me already! And my NZ road trip is coming to an end -- tomorrow night in Greymouth, Thursday night in Christchurch, and then off to Nelson for 8 nights.
Today I drove from Wanaka to Franz Josef. I'm definitely glad that I shortened the drive a bit by staying in Wanaka vs. Queensown -- as it was, the drive was close to 7 hours long. It was only 237.1km -- but I stopped a lot to check out the sites -- and the road was like a roller-coaster -- twisting and turning up and down the sides of mountains & lakes (with waterfalls all over the place).
Haast Pass is the lowest pass through the Southern Alps. Absolutely beautiful drive. My pictures don't do it justice (I can't seem to take very good pics of woods or waterfalls). It's pretty deserted -- I only went through a couple of very small towns -- there weren't even any sheep! (well not until I got up the coast a bit). Once I crossed over to the west side of the mountains -- I entered into a temperate rainforest (and the weather changed quickly from sunny to cloudy) -- and then drove along the coast (Tasman Sea) up to the glaciers.
The township of Franz Josef outside of Franz Josef Glacier is a weird place. Small town filled with a bunch of backpackers and Americans. And the Americans are either old or really strange (like people who are too strange to live in California) -- well excluding me of course.
I was hoping to take a helicopter ride up onto the glacier -- but the weather was too crappy and they weren't flying. Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow morning.
I did go to the West Coast Wildlife Centre -- they run an incubation and captive rearing program for NZ's rarest Kiwi birds -- the Rowi and Haast tokoaka. Kiwis are rather odd birds -- they are flightless and rather large -- and made for a world that doesn't have land mammals. They don't do anything to rear their chicks --- Kiwi chicks are on their own once they are born -- and because of the land animals introduced into NZ (like stoats) -- only 5% of Kiwi chicks in the wild survive. So the center takes the eggs -- incubates them, raise the chicks for 6 months and then release them into the wild. This center has been around for 4 years -- they have a 95% success rate at raising the chicks -- and, by 2020, they are hoping to increase the local Kiwi population from 400 to 600.
Weather: sunny, cloudy, rainy, 52 - 66F
Miles Walked: 3.4
km Driven: 237.1
pic notes: bird of the day: some kind of Skua; the x-ray is of a pregnant Kiwi bird -- the egg is enormous! and a baby kiwi (bad pic --- glass too reflective)
Today I drove from Wanaka to Franz Josef. I'm definitely glad that I shortened the drive a bit by staying in Wanaka vs. Queensown -- as it was, the drive was close to 7 hours long. It was only 237.1km -- but I stopped a lot to check out the sites -- and the road was like a roller-coaster -- twisting and turning up and down the sides of mountains & lakes (with waterfalls all over the place).
Haast Pass is the lowest pass through the Southern Alps. Absolutely beautiful drive. My pictures don't do it justice (I can't seem to take very good pics of woods or waterfalls). It's pretty deserted -- I only went through a couple of very small towns -- there weren't even any sheep! (well not until I got up the coast a bit). Once I crossed over to the west side of the mountains -- I entered into a temperate rainforest (and the weather changed quickly from sunny to cloudy) -- and then drove along the coast (Tasman Sea) up to the glaciers.
The township of Franz Josef outside of Franz Josef Glacier is a weird place. Small town filled with a bunch of backpackers and Americans. And the Americans are either old or really strange (like people who are too strange to live in California) -- well excluding me of course.
I was hoping to take a helicopter ride up onto the glacier -- but the weather was too crappy and they weren't flying. Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow morning.
I did go to the West Coast Wildlife Centre -- they run an incubation and captive rearing program for NZ's rarest Kiwi birds -- the Rowi and Haast tokoaka. Kiwis are rather odd birds -- they are flightless and rather large -- and made for a world that doesn't have land mammals. They don't do anything to rear their chicks --- Kiwi chicks are on their own once they are born -- and because of the land animals introduced into NZ (like stoats) -- only 5% of Kiwi chicks in the wild survive. So the center takes the eggs -- incubates them, raise the chicks for 6 months and then release them into the wild. This center has been around for 4 years -- they have a 95% success rate at raising the chicks -- and, by 2020, they are hoping to increase the local Kiwi population from 400 to 600.
Weather: sunny, cloudy, rainy, 52 - 66F
Miles Walked: 3.4
km Driven: 237.1
pic notes: bird of the day: some kind of Skua; the x-ray is of a pregnant Kiwi bird -- the egg is enormous! and a baby kiwi (bad pic --- glass too reflective)
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