Jackson Bay and Rob Roy Glacier

Ed and I set out on two day trips from Wanaka in two days; the hours in the car went quickly because the scenery was beautiful. Mostly pictures below, as they'll tell the story better than I ever could.

Jackson Bay

This spot on the west coast of New Zealand is a great spot to see penguins! Or so we were told. The drive was about 2.5 hours each way, which is a bit much, but Eliot told us about the Blue Pools about an hour into the drive that we just had to see. Figuring this would break things up and make it twice as worth the trip, we set off early in the morning. The walk to the Blue Pools took about 15 minutes from the main road. We'd been driving through hills covered with dry, brown grass but the moment we stepped onto the trail (or "track" as it is called here) we were transported into what felt more like a jungle. Moss-covered tree trunks protruded from a sea of ferns. 

We crossed a rather wobbly suspension bridge over a river that gave us a sneak peek at the color of the water that would be in the pools. Thanks to sediment from glaciers, the shade of blue is spectacular. 

It was still early enough to be chilly by the time we got to the pools. Ed estimates the temperature of the water was in the 50's. So we banished any thoughts of swimming and just enjoyed the scenery.

Lots of people had left their mark in the schist field to one side of the biggest pool. While the towers of rocks were kind of cool, I prefer nature to look a little more, well, natural. 

We climbed back into the car after our little respite and kept driving toward the coast. The sign below seemed promising:

We walked through the "town" in about 90 seconds. The track to the beach was a little longer, and I was glad because it was quite beautiful. Ferns and lush greenery surrounded us on all sides, and we spotted tiny fish in the creek next to the path. Birds entertained us with their antics (something birds seem to be pretty into doing here in New Zealand). But when we got to the beach, its most notable attribute was its lack of penguins. 

This is pretty much the whole beach.

At least I thought that was its most notable attribute. Ed thought its most notable attribute was swarms of sandflies. I'd never heard of these before coming here. If you haven't, be grateful, because they are an absolute menace. Though foiled by long sleeves and pants, there isn't much else that thwarts them. Instead of drinking the blood of their victims through a sharp proboscis, the method used by sophisticated insects like mosquitoes, sandflies, as Eliot explained, "hack away at your skin with tiny knives, spread anti-coagulant saliva over the gash, then slurp away."I, in long, protective clothing, scrambled along the boulders out to the point to see whether a colony of penguins lay just beyond our view. Ed provided a buffet for the sandflies. Eventually, disappointed (me) and bleeding (Ed), we trekked back to the town to the Craw Pot, a restaurant the very size and shape of a train car (a comparison which may explain its origin) for some truly exceptional fish and chips and something called a mussel fritter, which is a fried patty of chopped up mussels and seasonings.

We learned from a placard in town that penguins typically molt on the beach between January and February. By about March, they head out to sea and are gone for a few months, so we suspect that's why we didn't see any. But it all turned out pretty well, actually, because if we had seen penguins I probably wouldn't have been scanning the beach so carefully as we drove away. Through the window of the car, I saw what seemed to be small black heads poking out of the water, only to disappear a moment later. We pulled over and walked out to the beach, where we saw that what I'd thought were heads were, in fact, fins. They looked like dorsal fins because of the way they were emerging, then vanishing, but they were rounded. And there was too much reflection on the water to tell what they were. But then there was a slightly larger wave and we realized what we were seeing. They were dolphins.

I did NOT take this picture, and we did not see them out of the water. But this will give you an idea, since you've probably never heard of or seen this kind of dolphin.

Based on the way they were swimming all over the place close to the surface, we guessed that the dolphins were probably eating. But every now and then a few of them would take a break to surf toward the shore on a wave. I saw lots of individual fins and lots of pairs of fins, too. It was fantastic - I could have watched them all day. Ed, however, who had discovered that this beach also played host to its own sandflies, was soon ready to go.

We learned later that this particular breed is called Hector's dolphin. They are very small, have rounded dorsal fins, and are found only in this part of the world. They are known for being very playful, and their babies are born in January, which may explain why I saw so many fin pairings: I'll bet they were mothers and little ones. We drove back through more lovely scenery, and I thought the hours on the road were well worth it.

Rob Roy Glacier

The following day, our target was much closer. Rob Roy Glacier is only about an hour and twenty minutes from Wanaka. It's actually closer than that drive time indicates, but the last third of the drive follows a dirt road punctuated by many, many "fords" that forced us to drive through at a snail's pace for fear of getting stuck in the water. There were lots of skinny waterfalls pouring down out of nowhere, thanks to the glacier fields that are all over the tops of the mountains in this part of the country.

The hike to the viewing area--this is not a glacier one would want to walk on because it's covered with crevasses and rather unstable--took us a little less than 90 minutes (including lots of stops for photos and gazing around). There were quite a few wildflowers and for a while everything was lush, green, and tropical rather than Arctic. But then, suddenly, I spotted the glacier looming above is through a break in the foliage. 

The river we walked alongside for much of the hike was the expected vivid blue of a river fed by glacial melt. The whole thing was lovely, though a bit steep for my recovering hip... I was glad to have brought my trekking poles!

We waited for a bit at the upper viewing area hoping to see an icefall, but nothing happened and so, having rested a bit, we headed back down and were treated to more sweeping views of the valley carved by the paths of previous glaciers.