THE WEST COAST ROUTE

From Wanaka we had 2 possible routes we could take and we had decided to follow the advice we'd been given and head for the west coast. The road from Wanaka would take us west to Haast, then north via the glaciers to the coastal town of Hokitika. After a night there we planned to head for Nelson before returning to north island.
We knew the weather was due to be better here than on the east coast of south island that week, and we were also expecting to see interesting changes in the landscape.  It turned out to be very green with many more trees compared to the east of the South Island.

And, of course, there would be more stunning scenes.
Waterfall Creek:

Fox Glacier:
Named after the-then British Prime Minister William Fox who visited in 1872, the Fox Glacier is one of the largest and most impressive of south island's 60 glaciers. Maori legend has it that a beautiful girl so loved the mountains she encouraged her lover to climb alongside her. Tragedy struck when he fell to his death, and she cried so copiously that her tears formed the glaciers.
6kms. from the town of Fox Glacier we took a track leading to the foot of the glacier, crossing a couple of small streams.
The phenomenal rainfall of the west coast, averaging 5 metres (!) annually, has produced some of the world's fastest-moving glaciers but even these speeds haven't been enough completely to counteract melting, and the Fox Glacier has receded over 3kms. since Captain Cook first saw it.

The Fox Glacier

Note the pristine and white state of the glacier. Unlike glaciers in the European Alps or the American Rockies, the glacier descends so steeply the rock debris doesn't have time to build up.

The stream of water plus small icebergs that we had to cross to get to the Glacier. 

Looking back through the valley to car park.   The Glacier extended all the way to the car park in the 1930s and filled the valley between the rocks in the picture.

We saw blocks of ice a full 2kms. from the glacier.

The drive 135kms. north from Fox Glacier turned out to be a windy and steep road through dairy farms and native bush. There were the ubiquitous lakes but very few signs of habitation apart from the occasional old gold settlement like Ross.

Hokitika:
We were staying the night at Hokitika and we weren't expecting too much in the way of scenery as the 'Rough Guide' called it '...only marginally more interesting then Greymouth', damning it with faint praise for sure. BUT we were very pleasantly surprised by a town that has real charm.
Another 1860s gold-rush town, the port had briefly become the country's busiest, exporting over a tonne of gold a month. Once gold ran out, the local economy relied on dairying and timber but by 1954 the port was closed.
The treacherous bar at the Hokitika rivermouth has taken more than its fair share of victims, commemorated in the beach-side Shipwreck Memorial.

The beach is a dramatic mass of driftwood. Each January the Driftwood and Sand Competition sees entrants compete to produce the most original construction from detritus found on the beach. we'd have loved to have seen it.

Walking around the town we came upon this impressive building, clearly a remnant of Hokitika's prosperous past.

The statue outside of Richard Seddon (local M.P. and New Zealand's Prime Minister in the late 19th century) suggested it must have had some official significance when it was built, but there was no way of finding out for sure.

But today it was ALL for sale at a 'give-away price' for development.

Other buildings also hinted at past glories:

For hundreds of years Hokitika and its surrounding areas have been nationally important as a source of pounamu, otherwise known as greenstone, NZ jade or nephrite.

We couldn't miss the Purple Pig on top of the local i-SITE. We'd arrived 2 days before the annual Wildfoods Festival when the town quadruples in size for a celebration of bush tucker. About 50 stalls sell such delicacies as stir-fried possum, golden-fried huhu grubs, marinated goat kebabs and smoked eel wontons! Thank heavens we missed it!!!