Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain

Diamond Lake

When we arrived in Wanaka yesterday we limited ourselves to a stroll around part of Lake Wanaka (although it was still six miles). Today we thought we would do something more ambitious drawn from the Department of Conservation leaflet of walks in the area.

We drove out of town and followed the lake shore along the Mount Aspiring road, reaching the car park for the walk after 12 km.  You start by following a nondescript track which winds upwards to reach Diamond Lake, a circular glacial lake. It was quite cloudy at first and this picture of the path, and the one of the lake above, was taken on the way down.

From here a series of steps, 300 or more ....

... lead up to a viewing platform above the lake. There are great views towards mountains on three sides. The challenge was to get mountains, sky and lake into the same shot.

Onwards and upwards to emerge onto a sort of upland prairie, with views over Lake Wanaka

Now there was a choice between the western and eastern routes to the top. We opted for the western route which involved a steep, sustained climb to reach a new higher plateau and finally the peak. Looking back, there was a fine view towards Mount Aspiring in the background, with rock formations known, rather imaginatively it seems to me, as rochers moutonnees (sheep rocks) - "A roche moutonnée is a rock hill shaped by the passage of ice to give a smooth up-ice side and a rough, plucked and cliff-girt surface on the down-ice side. The upstream surface is often marked with striations." (Courtesy of a site about landforms in Scotland).

In the other direction, there are fantastic views over Lake Wanaka, with one of its islands, Mou Tapu, to the left and the mouth of the Matukituki River in the foreground. The way in which the mouth of the river is being silted up by sediment is very clear.

Half-right there is another great view over the lake.

A bit later, while we were just sitting on the summit, enjoying the views, the cloud lifted and the summit of Mount Aspiring / Tititea appeared. At 3,033 metres it is New Zealand's highest outside the 20 or so in the Aoraki / Mount Cook national park. We supposed it must be aspiring to be Mount Cook.

We descended via the eastern route and enjoy vertiginous views downwards from the narrow track. It was not so steep as the western one and was probably best enjoyed on the way down.

The summit was at 775m. I was disappointed to find that Lake Wanaka is already at 300m above sea level, so the actual climb was only 475m. But this was still the hardest climb we have yet done: compare 203m for Swyre Head in Dorset, 224m for Box Hill and 294m for Leith Hill, both in Surrey. These are hardly areas known for steep climbs of course.

Distance: about 7 km, which took us 4 hours, including recuperative pauses and time at the summit. Almost 12000 steps.

Rating: Five stars. The first, but hopefully not the last.

Sightings

Fantails and Bellbirds. Some Common Blues.

Footnote

We have learned that most walks in NZ have a story. This one is unusual in that it was deliberately created in the early 1990s for the purpose of walking by a local businessman by the name of Stuart Landsborough.

Lake Wanaka

 Lake Wanaka

Just arrived in Wanaka after a four hour drive from Fox Glacier via Haast. The weather had changed for the worse and after visiting Franz Josef glacier and yesterday's amazing walks to Lake Matheson and Gillespies Beach, we felt we had done all we really wanted to, so we decided to move on a day early.

We felt a strong need to do something right away, to profit from the extra time in Wanaka, so we got a leaflet of local walks from the local Dept of Conservation office and embarked along what seemed to be a short stroll along the shore of Lake Wanaka. It is a massive lake, 42 km long and 192 square km  in area - the fourth largest in New Zealand. It is said to be 311 m deep. Unlike many other NZ lakes, Lake Wanaka is notable for having a number of islands and inlets, so it has a complex and interesting appearance.

Wanaka town is at the bottom of the lake and the walk simply involves following the shoreline to a landmark known as Beacon Point.

We were staying at a lakeside motel so it was very agreeable to simply exit the motel and turn to the right along the lake shore, looking at the view at the head of this post. A bit behind us on the landward side were houses, some of them quite expensive-looking. We passed a small marina and soon reached the first point of note, Eely Point, a park-like area with grass and large trees.

The shoreline turns sharply here and around the corner is the start of Bremner Bay. The mountainous area opposite, under low cloud, is known as The Peninsular, a large outcrop which juts out into the lake, connected to the surrounding land by a narrow causeway.

Bremner Bay houses a spacious suburb, so there were always scattered houses to the landward side as we strolled round. But after the far end of the bay, the lake shore ceases to be developed and once we had turned a corner to approach the small headland of Beacon Point (the area of vegetation in the photo below), it felt quite isolated with a rocky shoreline and mountains opposite.

This arm of the lake is known as Dublin Bay.

It been a walk of 3.5 miles (measured by the pedometer: 2000 steps per mile) - much more than we had expected from the DOC leaflet, which for such a simple walk was not at all clear. We decided to return by following roads and this cutting off some of the many corners we had turned on the way.

This was a bit boring, but it was interesting to observe the range of houses, from luxury mansions to places little better than shacks - ripe, obviously, for development. Overall, this seemed a pretty prosperous area with desirable houses, many apparently holiday homes. Coming back was only 2.75 miles, which made it worthwhile.

Conditions: cloudy but warm.

Distance: 6 miles.

Rating: three and a half stars.

Sightings

We saw a number of New Zealand scaup on the lake: a small, mainly black duck with a notable golden eye. In many places on the walk there were wild lupins, which were very pretty, but the highlight was an area of shoreline with these beautiful orange California Poppies. So, non-native, but still lovely.

Gillespies Beach

Gillespies Beach

We are staying in Fox Glacier and we have already today done a lovely walk around Lake Matheson. It is typical mountain weather: a bright start, but now dull and cloudy. But we noticed that to the west i.e. towards the coast, it was bright and clear, so we decided to follow the gravel road to Gillespie's Beach and walk there. The lady at the motel had enthused about it, and remarkably someone we had met when we were in the North Island had also sung its praises.

Before we started the walk, we had a quick look at the beach. It is a wide grey expanse of round stones, covered with drift wood. We were expecting the drift wood, which is standard on west coast beaches in the South Island, but we were struck by how substantial the driftwood was: tree trunks rather than branches. It seems that it is washed out to sea when the rivers are in flood and then brought back in to land by the tide.

Initially you walk along a pleasant grassy track behind the beach. It was quite English in character - except of course for the palm trees on the hills in the distance. We saw several Common or Boulder Copper butterflies along here - the first we have seen.

After a while the track arrives at a rusty gold dredger dating from the 1930s. We chatted to some fellow walkers who explained that this form of gold mining was carried on here until the 1940s and continued to this day on both an industrial and hobby scale elsewhere in the South Island. We knew of the gold rush in the 1850s, but it came as a surprise to realise how long gold mining had persisted.

In fact, according to the DOC Glacier Country website, at the height of the gold rush Gillespies Beach was home to 700 miners, mostly living rough, although there were hotels and shops to serve their needs.

Now the path followed the back of the beach and the density of driftwood reached a new level of intensity. It seemed like some animal graveyard or the site of an ancient battle.

At the end of this section of beach we reached a lagoon - inevitably Gillespies lagoon. A remarkably pretty spot. The lagoon was effectively a river which didn't quite connect to the sea.

We went a little further along the coast and enjoyed fine views towards the north. I took another of my new trademark photos with a low camera angle and foreground rocks.

Out to sea, a large rock had a collection of Shags, regular black and pied, perched on it. One of the pied ones patrolled the waterline with a proprietorial air.

We returned to the lagoon and found the path leading to a miners' tunnel and reportedly onwards to a seal colony (although the lady at our motel had said that there were in fact currently no seals).

Shortly past this point ...

... the path was completely flooded. We could see a bridge over the lagoon, but we did not feel in the mood to wade through the mud to reach it, so we decided to retrace our steps. We later met some other people who had found their way along the beach to the seal colony - where in fact there were seals (they had photos to prove it).

Conditions: hot and sunny

Distance: three miles.

Rating: four and a half stars. A wonderful beach and an interesting walk. We learned later from the Glacier Country website that James Edwin Gillespie was the first to find “colour” (i.e. gold) in 1865 and gained naming rights to the stretch of coastline. We never discovered why he did not rate an apostrophe.

Lake Matheson

Mounts Tasman and Cook from Lake Matheson car park 

We arrived in Fox Glacier last night and stayed at the Sunset Motel. It promised views of Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain at 3754m, and Mount Tasman, 3497m. Unfortunately, it was wet and cloudy and there was just a suggestion of Mount Cook visible in the murk.

In typical New Zealand style however the morning dawned bright and clear and I took this picture of Mount Cook from the garden at the back of the room.

So now it was a case of hurrying down to nearby Lake Matheson to see if we could get one of the famous mirror image photos of the mountains in the water of the lake. We were a little slow off the mark and cloud had already began to form by the time we parked the car, as the photo at the head of this post shows. The sun had risen above the mountain rim and so any photography was into it.

We followed a winding path through heavy bush to arrive about 30 minutes later at a viewing platform at one side of the lake. It was by now even more cloudy and the surface was ruffled by wind and the movement of the ducks. This was the best I could do.

Most people had come to the platform, taken a few photos and gone back, but we decided to at least complete the circuit of the lake and were delighted after another 20 minutes or so to reach another viewing point, with a much higher perspective. It was identified as the View of Views, and was well-named. Although conditions were still not ideal, a pretty decent picture resulted. Mount Cook is on the right.

As we completed our circuit there was a nice view, in the direction opposite to the mountains, of the rush-lined lake margins. The DOC has the policy of allowing natural processes to have their head and is doing nothing to stop the encroachment plants at the lake margins. We were not quite sure whether that was really right: it could be argued that the lake's character should be preserved.

And a bit later it was possible to see through the vegetation to the first viewing platform, with a new consignment of picture takers hard at work.

As we completed the walk we heard a lovely fluid birdsong that we had heard before on our walks, but this time we caught a good view of the bird. It was the well-named Bellbird.

Conditions: Cloudy, cool.

Distance: about 3 miles.

Rating: Four stars.

Franz Josef Glacier

First view of the glacier

We were en route for Fox Glacier from Hokitika, but we had planned to stop off to see Franz Josef Glacier, about 20 km north, on the way. Starting at the car park you can already see the top of the glacier calling you.

You walk along a tarmac track, then quite suddenly the track emerges in a vast canyon. This was a real catch-your-breath moment, dramatic and unexpected. You cross a wooden bridge and then a winding track opens up, leading across towards the glacier.

We walked across this wonderful open space. Our sense of wonder was slightly dented by three American teenagers who were noisily running and jumping ... and talking in loud voices. I have no idea what he was talking about or even what he meant, but I did hear one boy say "No shit? ... Baad aass ... Sweet!" What language is that?

There was even a small waterfall coming down from the high sides - and almost inevitably, there was someone with his shirt off having a quick shower.

At the far side, you can't get right up to the mouth of the glacier without taking a organised tour, which we had decided we could do without, but the view of the is still pretty clear.

The surprising thing, not at all clear from the ground, is that the glacier is 12 km long. It is fed by a 20-square-kilometre snowfield. The unusual thing about it is that its mouth is so low down - only about 300m above sea level. It is also unusual in that it is currently advancing, unlike most glaciers in the world which are in full retreat under the influence of global warming. The reason for this is heavy snowfalls at higher levels. Historically, however it was much bigger: in the 1850s in reached right the way down the valley. Future projects are for a retreat from its current position.

Turning round to retrace our steps, the small river which flows from the glacial melt become more apparent, and looked quite dramatic in the gathering cloud.

Part of the way back along the tarmac track, we followed a detour to a viewpoint (lookout in NZ speak) which offered a wonderful view from a different angle.

We were so enjoying our exploration that when we returned to the car park we headed off in a different direction along another marked track. This took us past a small glacial lake, called Peter's Pool - named after a seven year old boy, Peter Westland, who camped here in 1909. As an explanation, this seems to leave many unanswered questions.

After a steady descent we came to a narrow swing bridge across the river. A notice insisted that no more than 4 people should be on the bridge at any one time. We felt the wisdom of this when two walkers appeared at the other end and it began to move madly.

The river was now a much more substantial waterway.

I couldn't resist the shape and colour of these rocks, viewed from above, at the side of the river.

The track over the river looked inviting, but it was time to resume our journey to Fox, so we returned to the car.

Conditions: warm, but mostly cloudy.

About 5 miles.

Rating: five stars.

Lake Kaniere

Lake Kaniere

We arrived yesterday in Hokitika and our plan for today was to do the Lake Kaniere walkway, 19 km away. The day dawned wet and cloudy, but once it began to brighten up we decided to proceed in hope.  According to the Department of Conservation, the lake is 8 km long, 2 km wide and 195 m deep in places. It is also "one of the most beautiful lakes in New Zealand". Unfortunately, when we got there we could not see the other side, let alone the celebrated mountainous backdrop.

The walkway, which is advertised as 4 hours one-way, starts near the lakeside car park and you are quickly in thick bush on a track which meanders, sometimes closer to, sometimes farther from the lakeside. The path is interesting and varied.

Some sections are at the bottom of rocky slopes covered with liverworts and sedges.

After an hour so we paused at the first open area, which we named Flower Creek, in honour of these wild fuchsias.

A bit further on we came to Stony Bay, where you could get down to a stony bay and (probably) have great views of the rest of the lake.

The stones were very photogenic.

The walking seemed to be a bit harder from here on: more little streams, necessitating small descents and ascents, and more tree roots across the path. After two hours walking we came to a second, smaller Stony Bay, with another great view and decided that was probably enough.

Then we retraced our steps. We were at least rewarded with a fine rainbow as we neared the car park.

Conditions: cloudy, wet in parts, mild.

Distance: about 8 miles.

Rating: three stars. No doubt would have been more on a nice day.

Sightings

Although the walk was a bit bit frustrating, we did see some interesting things. Foremost among them was this blue mushroom, which I couldn't quite succeed in focusing on.

It is the Sky Blue mushroom (reasonably enough), scientific name Entoloma hochstetteri, and is found in New Zealand and India.

Secondly, these beautiful blue berries. I had seen them before, but hadn't been able to get a satisfactory picture. I haven't been able to identify them: searching on Google for plants with blue berries mostly produces information about Blueberries.

And among just one of the innumerable areas of liverwort, there was a waxy white flower, also alas unidentified.

We saw a pair of Fantails doing their fan dance for us, almost like hummingbirds, a couple of Tomtits and some Paradise Shelducks on the lake.

Christchurch

Canterbury Museum

We flew into Christchurch this afternoon and we are intending to catch the Tranzalpine train across the Southern Alps to Greymouth first thing tomorrow, so we have just a few hours in this earthquake-devastated city. We are staying in very ordinary hotel on one of the four boulevards which bound the city centre and we decided to walk into the centre just to see what it was like. We had already been a bit shocked by the extent of earthquake damage far from the centre.

We walked along Colombo St, which once led direct to Cathedral Square, but soon had to turn right because the road was closed. Most of the buildings were visibly damaged. We were repeatedly forced further right (west), but eventually reached the Canterbury Museum and Botanic Gardens, which were unscathed.

Opposite the Museum, the Arts Centre marked the limit of the zone of the central zone of destruction. This wonderful group of Gothic Revival buildings, once part of the University, all suffered some damage and the whole complex is closed for remedial works.

We walked through the Botanic Gardens and crossed a small bridge over the River Avon. Christchurch is always said to be the most English of New Zealand's cities and it was easy to see why.

A little further along the riverbank, the punting centre was just about to close. Ok, they are not proper Cambridge punts, but this was a remarkably English image - and also of course an extraordinary image of normality in the shattered city.

We followed the river as far as we could, just to see if we could better approach Cathedral Square from the south side. We were told that residents were recently given access in effect to say goodby to the Cathedral which is shortly to be fully de-constructed, pending rebuilding at some future date.

It was not possible of course, but we did see the war memorial arch, which has survived intact, and is clearly acting as a focal point for grief and remembrance.

A detour to find a supermarket brought us past the wooden church of St Michael's and All Angels. It dates from 1872 and was the first church to be built in Christchurch and according to the church website is "one of the largest timber churches of its style in the world and possesses a warmer atmosphere than one you would find in a stone building". The small separate belltower is a charming feature.

Conditions: a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Distance: about four miles.

It was good to get some sense of what Christchurch was once like and important to gain some first hand sense of the impact of the earthquake. It was deeply melancholy to walk along the largely deserted streets with empty and fenced-off buildings on all sides.