Go West for a wild ride
It’s like being in a Road Runner cartoon. The weka comes hurtling around the corner at full speed, suddenly spots me, and scrambles madly with its claws on the path to change direction. Then it’s gone into the bush and I’m alone again, with just the roar of the sea and the rattle of the flax leaves for company.
Punakaiki on a damp spring morning is a moody place. The clouds hang low over the dark hills, spray drifts along the shore over the white scallops of foam and the famous Pancake Rocks are black against the silver sea.
Yesterday was so different. The bush glowed in the sun, a million shades of green, the Tasman sparkled blue and, as we skimmed in a jet boat down the river at Whataroa, the air was warm in our faces.
A trailer, another boat and a boardwalk took us to a very special place, the nesting site for New Zealand’s ko¯ tuku, or white herons.
These beautiful birds with dazzlingly white feathers number only about 120 altogether and, for the rest of the year, are dispersed around the country. But, in spring, they come to this floating forest next to the Okarito Lagoon to raise their chicks.
It’s a glorious sight. According to Ma¯ ori legend, it brings good fortune to see just one in a lifetime, so we felt particularly lucky.
But today, the luck seems to have run out. The cloud means that our helicopter ride up on to Franz Josef Glacier is cancelled, and we’ll have to go the old-fashioned way – on foot.
We trudge up the riverbed, astonished to learn that the tongue of the glacier, which looks so close, is two kilometres away.
It’s our first lesson in how big this river of ice really is. The second is when we start to climb it, zigzagging up the face and getting to the top, we see another level and then another beyond it, stepping up into the clouds.