Ice Climbing and Other Water Sports (AKA Fox Glacier, Cape Foulwind, & Kaikoura)
- Jackie Endres
- Mar 11, 2020
- 14 min read
Leaving Queenstown, the adventure center of New Zealand, one would think that our adrenaline-seeking activities would slow down a bit. That’s not quite how it happened.
The Road North
Arrowtown
Just north of Queenstown is the cute village of Arrowtown. This former mid-1800s gold rush Chinese settlement has retained a lot of the era's charm including original buildings of the settlers. We strolled through the town popping into a couple of the historical buildings and lamented being on a clean-eating kick as we passed a candy shop and couldn’t fill a weighed bag full of joy.
The Bra Fence
After Arrowtown, we set our sights north, where we passed over the diverse landscapes, curvy roads, and picturesque stops.
But the roads weren’t the only curves we met on our route, no, we had one voluptuous stop to make: The Bra Fence of Cardrona. Here (another place we found on Atlas Obscura), a fence is offered for women to place their bosom support network—not in 70s style protest—no, in support of breast cancer awareness and funding (there’s a donation box as well where 100% of donations go to the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation).
We also stopped at the oft-instagrammed Wanaka Tree on Lake Wanaka where we took the requisite photo, skipped rocks, admired a fuzzy duckling, and tried to take in the scale of their land trees. The Wanaka Tree is quite remarkable as it actually apparently started as a fence post and grew unexpectedly to this awkward willow of which influencers are clamoring (and clambering) to get a shot. However, because some people are just here for the photo, the poor tree has had to put up with some abuse and, honestly, its days are probably numbered as stupid (my words) hashtag addicts climb the fragile tree for the perfect photo-op, bending and breaking its branches.
Fox Glacier
Upon arrival to Fox Glacier, we had a bit of a misunderstanding with our accommodations and ended up having to kill about an hour-and-a-half until they would let us in. However, we were able to witness (and hear the birdsong of) the elusive Kea. The Kea is the only alpine parrot and the smartest bird in the world, rivaling monkeys and four-year-old children (true!).
The Church
Speaking of our accommodation, here is where we stayed:
Yes, we stayed in a renovated church (and survived!).
When the church fell into disrepair several years ago, the current owner purchased it, fixed it up, and listed it as a unique homestay. The energy is bright and welcoming, appliances brand new, the decoration true to the history of the space including hymnals and candelabras in a glass case, and the guests are welcomed with a bottle of wine (not church wine, I made sure to check thoroughly). Because our first day there was torrential all-day rain, we stayed inside the cozy church, enjoyed its highspeed internet, and wrote our previous blog (ICYMI), finished our taxes (yay Oregon budget surplus reimbursement!), and made plans to travel to Qatar and Turkey between NZ and Africa. And, bonus, when the rain parted, we got quite the light show peeking in below the clouds.
Ice Climbing
On Wednesday, we did what we came to Fox Glacier to do: see the glacier. Well, maybe a bit more than just see the glacier. We joined a heli-ice climb, boarding a helicopter (once the morning clouds parted), and touring over the Fox Glacier (named for a former premier of New Zealand) before landing among the ants below to begin our climb.
We started by slipping into our sharp crampons and learning the proper helicopter etiquette of crouching down to avoid getting blown down onto the slippery ice or getting ice chunks sprayed at us. Once our whole group arrived, we grabbed our ice axes and practiced with our gear.
Before we could move, we heard thunder and looked across the glacier to see a giant rock falling from the mountain beside us. Scale has no meaning on the ice. Mountains and ice are so large that my tiny human brain can’t create perspective around size. So when I saw ants on the ice, they were people awaiting our helicopter’s landing. When I saw a boulder falling from a rock (the sound-level with which it fell far surpassing my expectations), I was surprised to learn it was likely the size of a two-story home. It feels that way almost everywhere in New Zealand--that my mind tries to comprehend the scale of what I’m viewing and I only have previous, much smaller frameworks to use.
Anyway, all of us took to stomping with purpose into the ice hoping to get our crampons to stick in. It only took our two guides laughing and stopping us, the Kiwi-Sherpa (spends 50% of his time in Nepal) letting us know it wasn’t necessary to assault the ice to get a stick in from our crampons. We relaxed a bit after that.
After some practice, we began ascending the glacier. It’s not advised to climb the whole thing (the story goes that the only person who tried still has not had his body recovered), but we methodically made our way up to where we could. Jacob (our guide from Vancouver, Canada) and Passang (Kiwi-Sherpa), took turns inserting ice screws and creating our rope lines for ascent after which we made our ways carefully up.
There was quite the spectrum of skills on our trip, and I was unlucky enough to fall behind one slight and cute young woman from Singapore whose idea of force was about as strong as you would turn a page in a book. So, because she was so dainty with her ice ax and crampons, invariably she would slip back down towards me. Not a big deal when we were on lines and clipped in on separate portions (as was always done as a safety precaution), but many times we ascended without the rope and just with ax and crampons and she was skidding dangerously back down. After the first couple of times witnessing that, I decided to just hang back and wait until she passed each piece fully before I continued.
Most of our time was spent without a line, but when we had it we got to see much more of the glacier, testing the strength of the rope and leaning into crevices, over edges, and into holes to wonder at the depth, the terrain, and the flowing icy waterfalls that decorated the glacier.
After our first couple of hours, we broke for lunch and were able to drink straight from the pristine water flowing across. We ascended one more zig-zagged line to our summit and turned back for our descent crossing the same line to start.
Then we played with a variety of icy cave formations. We slid through the above ice cave (well, Heather and I slid through an ice cave, the rest of our party was worried about getting wet and skipped it), inched into a newly found tall ice cave, and belayed into and climbed out of a deep ice hole.
Overall it was an incredible experience. And the views were nonstop. I counted no fewer than twelve waterfalls from the surrounding mountains. The pinnacles sharply protruding from the top of the glacier warned future ice climbers to stay away. We saw dust billow into the valley below accompanied by an orchestra of more thunder as rockslides beyond our line of sight cracked into our earshot. And, while we understand that ice climbing can be one of the more dangerous activities to take on, we felt safe and well guided enough that we could fully enjoy the sights and sounds (behind sunglasses, because damn does the sun reflect hot from the ice).
We also learned about glaciers and this one in particular, so you know what that means…
-- Science Break! --
Fox Glacier is 8 miles long, but not the longest glacier in New Zealand -- that honor goes to the Tasman Glacier at 18 miles long
New Zealand has 3,144 glaciers (!)
That's a lot, right? But, it doesn't even flirt with the place that has the most glaciers in the world. That honor goes to our very own Alaska at 100,000 glaciers (!!!)--only 616 of them are named because you start running out of unique ways to name ice after that
Fox Glacier and many other glaciers of NZ and the world have lost significant mass due to warming temperatures accelerating melting. By the year 2100, Fox Glacier will have lost 5 km of mass. Pictures of the changes of just the last 10 years are shocking. <Aside/> If you’re having trouble comprehending how global warming (rebranded to the more palatable climate change) can affect our ocean temperatures and levels, remember that ice that melts isn’t like a science experiment in a cup of water where the water level never changes as the ice cube melts because the water was displaced by the ice cube’s mass, not portion under the water. Here, the ice is melting from land mass and flowing into water. New water to the water, raising the levels, affecting the temperatures, wreaking havoc on the native sea life, and causing great concern to coastal cities whose borders are certain to be overtaken. </End aside>
I wasn’t quite sure why some ice on the glacier looked white while other areas were a deep blue. I asked Passang who told me it had to do with the density of the ice, and then I forgot exactly what he said so I asked Wikipedia: "Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of the glacier. During compression, air bubbles are squeezed out, so ice crystals enlarge. This enlargement is responsible for the ice's blue color."
The Fox glacier gets 10-15 meters (well, I guess technically metres) of snowfall a year
-- You Learned! --
And before we knew it, our five hours on the glacier were over and it was time to board our helicopter to return to unfrozen ground.
We spent our last night in Fox Glacier at this cute little tiny home, and after a couple of hot showers and food, settled into the bed for the night where Heather rested up to try to sleep away her flu and I set about planning our next few days (yep, we’re still behind in planning, but catching up fast).
Cape of Good Health
Heather, the trooper, was pretty ill actually during the ice climb. She had a fever (forehead test) before starting and so being out on the ice was a pretty calculated risk. I knew after that that we needed to take a step back from adventure and nurse Heather back to good health, so in that tiny home the night prior, I booked our next two nights in a relaxation station further north on the West Coast in Cape Foulwind.
On the way to Cape Foulwind (neither foul, nor windy, but gladly absent of the aggressive sandflies that have made my ankles and feet raw with their sawing bites), we drove through Punakaiki, home of the pancake rocks. These steeple rock formations are limestone sediment, but scientists don’t quite know why they are stacked in layers like that (science mystery!). We spent 20 or so minutes there, walking the 0.6-mile loop around the rock formations and stood and listened to the waves abuse the rocks for a while.
And then, we arrived at our accommodation:
This place is relatively new to the Airbnb scene (only 14 reviews before booking), but it was 5 stars all the way so I took a chance on it. The inside is cozy, warm, and remarkably large. Queen sized bed that was ridiculously comfortable, couch and coffee table, kitchen table and chairs, and sweet foam bean bags to chill in front of the Netflix-offering TV. Outside of the yurt, we had our own private deck overlooking the ocean with a grill and two picnic tables. To the other side of the yurt was a small indoor space with a full kitchen, washing machine, and shower. Rock formations waved at us from the ocean. The bright blue sky gave way to dancing stars in the evening. It could not have been more perfect.
On our second day there, I drove up the road and took some surf lessons from one of New Zealand’s previous surfing title holders for a few hours while Heather rested. I was able to get on a smaller board (unlike the giant foam beasts every other place has put me on) and refine my surfing a bit.
By mid-afternoon, Heather was up for a hike and we made it to the lighthouse, the fur seal colony, and the hole in the rock (just in time to not get too swallowed up by the approaching tide).
Oh, we also encountered this flightless New Zealand native bird, which we affectionately call the Sea Chicken.
(Real name: Weka. Fun facts: extinct over many parts of NZ, but still kicking in a few strongholds; eat basically whatever, including dog food, eggs, fruit, and invertebrates; conservation efforts are tough because they are kind of a nuisance to other birds (eating their food and eggs and all) so can't be kept with other threatened species; walk like chickens, look like ducks, live by the sea.)
Kaikoura
After a couple of days, it was time to move to our final stop in the South Island, Kaikoura. Here, the theme was wildlife.
Whale Watching
If you know anything about Heather and me, you'll know we have had a string of bad luck in seeing whales. Three purchased whale watching tours in the last year resulted in one canceled for weather, one ending in the only skunking they had ever seen (a trip to see the resident whales of Depoe Bay) and one with barely a glimpse of the skin of a Humpback whale in Alaska before it retreated). We knew we were taking a risk with this tour in Kaikoura, but they offer an 80% refund if the trip goes on without a whale sighting, so we're in for a good hedge.
We arrived at Kaikoura Whale Watch at 7:45 AM for our check-in, and after some briefing boarded our boat to head to sea. We were lucky. Within minutes of reaching our first spot to hopefully catch a sighting, one of the resident sperm whales Aoraki (“cloud piercer”) surfaced. Heather caught his blowhole in the distance and our boat sped forth. There we watched him laze about until he gave us the show of his tail fluke and descended. Sperm whales stay down for 45 min to 1 hour, so he was gone.
Onto the next one. About 10 minutes later, we came upon a second sperm whale (not named). This is quite rare since male sperm whales are territorial (they only get males in Kaikoura), but Aoraki is known to roll with a crew. So this is one of his boys and we similarly got the show of surface lounging and diving.
Those were the only two resident whales the guides knew of in the area at that time, so we were able to move on from the whale watching and have fun with other wildlife. We sped along with pods of hundreds of dolphins, and saw several leaping and showing off in an explained mating ritual. We saw a fur seal catch a fish and several birds, including the giant albatross--a wingspan of up to 4 meters--scavenge at his kill. And we rode by rocks where fur seal pups were sitting and at times, practicing their own swimming.
Wildlife curse, broken.
Sunset Kayaking
That evening, we put on our first skirt of the New Zealand trip—a kayak skirt!
Heather and I along with a handful of other folks from Germany, NZ, and Australia took our two-person kayaks into the water just before sunset and paddled out and around. These kayaks were different from the less-technical ones we have normally been given (looking at you, Myanmar). These required steering with a rudder (and a strict skirt dress code), which I did while sitting in the back and using my feet pedals to change direction.
In hindsight, this was perhaps a slight mistake on our part. Heather is really a much better driver than I, and for some reason (perhaps video games?) when I want to turn right, I lean right, which presses my left foot down and thus has us steering left. There were times I was laughing so hard at my poor steering I had to quit paddling (and pedaling) altogether. But Heather hung with me and I eventually (sort of) figured it out, and we had an absolute blast.
Cohen, our ever-so-cool Kiwi instructor taught us about the native seabirds of the area (and the difference between the albatross and the black petrel). We got even closer to feeding fur seals, and this time they swam around our boats and engaged with us a bit.
AND…
We saw a penguin!
It was sort of behind where our group was going, but we were having no problems keeping up so we circled back and neared the cutie to take a closer look. This penguin goes by a number of names and is the very same species we watched in Australia at Phillip Island. (In Australia it is no longer called a fairy penguin due to (IMHO over-) sensitivities.)
After a few hours of kayaking it was time to make our way back in and head to our cottage. Oh, I also forgot to mention how dang cute our cottage was in Kaikoura. A 1940s style home complete with charm but updated amenities and the cutest blue fridge ever. And a goat named Nibbles. He would not eat our carrot or lettuce, but would take a pet.
We capped the night with an outdoor bath, letting the clouds give way to stars, and ate one more meal of tuna.
Llama Trekking
Not a water sport.
But a sport nonetheless, both of the mind and body. On our last day in Kaikoura, we met our Llama trekker, Kevin who gave us (and two other humans) a briefing on the llamas. Legend, Hero, Joey, and Pegasus might have done well to get a briefing on us as well, but as it were, they actually gave 0 fs.
Heather, naturally, was paired with Legend. Legend is the lead llama, the boss, the protector, the navigator. He keeps his awareness up for dangers, food opportunities, and cardinal directions. He is a natural leader.
Also, he previously spent time with Prince Charles (yes, the Prince Charles). The other humans were paired with the next two llamas in line. Hero is the king, the alpha llama of the pack. Joey is his best friend and a gelding, so not much competition for the lladies. These two could not be separated at all, a bromance for the ages.
Then came my pairing: Pegasus. Regal in appearances, yet perhaps in appearances alone. Pegasus is the old man of the group, and the glutton. He is content to tramp slowly behind the others, eat too much, and be the sacrificial llama for the hiding predators.
After introductions, we were handed leads and began what Kevin called the "funny fifteen," which is the fifteen minutes it takes the llamas to relax into our presence and start either following us or challenging us more.
Not going to lie, I was pretty darn nervous. Pegasus seemed very uninterested in me unless it was to show how he was basically my height. It started a little rough with him being a bit of a brat and trying to challenge my dominance. I had to learn how to show him both safety and leadership without peeing my pants.
But after the fifteen minutes passed, we got to be more relaxed with each other. The llamas in the middle started challenging their leads just as Pegasus warmed up to me. He was talking (grunting) the whole way, which at first I took to mean he was throwing shade on me to the herd. Kevin later told me it was because he is the sacrificial llama and was letting the rest of the herd simply know, "Hey guys, remember me? I'm still here!" So I calmed to his grunts and even talked with him a bit. (Legend was a dream the whole time, obviously with Heather at the helm.)
We trekked with the llamas for about three hours around Kaikoura, helping to feed them (I also ate some grass as a sign of solidarity), get them exercise, and also see a bit more of Kaikoura. We learned of the whaling practices in olden days and even came upon the bones of a washed-up whale.
We learned of the variety of grasses the llamas like to eat, their family bonds with camels, their ability to mate with alpaca, and fell for each of our own llamas. By the end, Pegasus and I were bonded just as Heather and Legend were. They were fluffy and loveable teddy bears, ready for all the pets.
And then we drove out of Kaikoura.
ChCh
Apparently, the shorthand for Christchurch is ChCh. Not sure how to pronounce it, but I'm having fun testing out different pronunciations.
Anyway, we ended our South Island tour back in the ChCh, but this time, we learned from our sub-par suburban experience and stayed in an actual suburb, Sumner--coastal and full of surfers and cliffs with views. In the last cute AirBnb of this blog, we stayed in this hillside hut.
After a hike up multiple steps to the room (leaving us grateful for having packed for our flight the next morning already and able to leave most of our stuff in the car except small packs for the night), we stepped inside and our presence took up most of it. The toilet was out back (sans light).
Turns out, our last night was more cute than comfortable. The futon left a lot to be desired, as did the airflow situation. Without air conditioning, we were left with propping one door and one window open to allow the breeze to flow through. However, there isn't a lock on either to hold them open, so the wind slammed each shut and back open throughout the night, leaving me to abandon them at 3 AM and try to piece together some stuffy sleep for the last few hours before our stop.
Christchurch: 2, H-Jax: 0.
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