We met our Canterbury Trails guide/driver for our trip from Queenstown up the West Coast of the South Island. We will be with him for 5 days covering the Glacier region, Arthurs Pass National Park and on to Christchurch. Brian the guide drives a 4WD Toyoto Van which is well outfitted with an intercom, a trailer for luggage and plenty of provisions for a spot of tea or lunch in the bush. He is totally knowledgeable in Maori culture, geology, flora and fauna and the history of NZ. We will stop repeatedly for observation, hikes, tea, waterfalls and even a spot of shopping.
Our first days' destination is the Glacier country which includes Fox Glacier where we will stay at the Te Weheka Inn in Fox Valley. There are 3035 charted glaciers in the South Island and another 28 on the North Island but we will explore only 2: the Fox and Franz Joesph(named for the Austrian emperor by Haast an Austrian explorer). The Glaciers in NZ result from the steady moisture flow from Antarctica and over the Tasman Sea which turns promptly to rain and snow when it hits the Coastal NZ Alps. The South Island is one of two places in the world where one encounters dense rain forests and within a 10 minute walk one can be at the terminal end of a glacier which extends miles up the mountain side. The other is Chile but this is the only island location in the world with such spectacular incongruities.
I will include some photos in this edition of the drive up via Lake Wanaka (where we had lakeside tea), over Haas Pass through miles of spectacular water falls and wild flowers and on to Fox Glacier where we stayed for two nights...a trip of only 180 miles but it required 9 hours to take it all in... plus a stop or two for farmers repositioning their cattle via our road.
Fascinating. How many of those charted glaciers are in rapid retreat? How many have gone off-chart entirely? I know climate change has certainly taken its toll in the Columbia ice field in Alberta; I wonder if the effects are different in this unique corner of the Southern Hemisphere.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, the two we explored have both extended since their 1970 low point. Nevertheless they are substantially reduced from their high point in 1790. The signage charted them at about six points in the last 3 hundred years and they were substantially reduced until the 20th century then they have become rather cyclical with a low point in 1970 then rebounding subtantially larger until now. In the most recent couple of years they are receding slightly. Overall there we did not get an impression of glacier retreat in the South Islands for now although the long term trend is reduction. The biggest ecological concerns here are loss of species to introduced predators like weasels and possum. I have never visited any place where the populace had the concerns they do here for flora, fauna and birds.
ReplyDeleteI can understand their concern; as a relatively small, self-contained ecosystem, I imagine systemic changes can run their course much more quickly, and with more devastating effect, than in a larger, more "porous" continental area.
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