4/14/26: Socked-In Aoraki But Still Fabulous!

After one of those drives the day before from Greymouth on the South Island's West Coast all the way east and then back inland to Twizel, where Steven and I thought nothing could possibly match the unparalleled beauty, we knew right away we were in for another wild ride! Though I'd visited this area of New Zealand in 2019, I was excited to show Steven that the road from Twizel north along the shore of Lake Pukaki to Aoraki, or Mt. Cook, might be one of the most beautiful in the country.

For Ngāi Tahu, the South Island's most dominant Māori tribe, the majestic Aoraki represents their most precious ancestors and is considered tapu or sacred. According to legend, sky father Raki married earth mother Papi-tui-nuku. When their four sons visited them from the heavens in a waka, or canoe, the waka capsized and turned to stone as they tried to return to the skies. The stone became the entire South Island. When Aoraki, the eldest son, and his brothers tried to hold onto the side of the waka, they became frozen and formed the land's mightiest peak, Aoraki, and its three other tallest mountains. Because Aoraki is tapu to Ngāi Tahu, climbers are asked not to stand on the summits of any of its peaks.

When we walked around the Aoraki Visitors Center, we learned that nowadays, the trip from Christchurch on the East Coast to Aoraki is just a few hours of pleasant driving. Once it took three days, and there were no guarantees of arrival. The first visitors came to Aoraki on horseback and used bullock wagons to cart heavy loads.

After crossing the Pukaki River on a whaleboat ferry to the lake's western shore, passengers faced another 65-km grueling journey over rocky roads and through fjords and swamps. Flooding creeks and even snowdrifts often lengthened or even stopped the final five-hour trip to the region's first hotel.

After World War I, coaches from the Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company provided transportation. But it was still slow going and hazardous, with much of the highway remaining unsealed until the 1960s. A journey that once took two days is now just two hours long.

The piupiu sculpture, a woven skirt made of dried flax, was a symbolic covering for the magnificent Aoraki and for those who live and travel here. It could be worn around the waist or over the shoulders like a cape. Each piupiu strand is linked together to represent strength and unity. The strands also symbolize the many people who have visited Aoraki, and those whose souls remain. 

I don't recall there being a fee in 2019 to visit the nearby Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Center, named in honor of New Zealand's late favorite son. As that had changed, and we wanted to go hiking, we decided not to see Hillary's mountaineering memorabilia and learn more about the epic tale of his scaling Mount Everest with his Nepalese climbing partner, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

Instead, we drove a few miles toward the Tasman View Glacier.

About halfway up the hill, we had a lovely view of the Blue Lakes. No, I wasn't colorblind, the Blue Lakes are now almost mint green! In the mid-1800s, when the lakes were named, they were fed by turquoise-colored glacial meltwater filtering through the moraine. The icy blue water was a refreshing swimming spot in the summer, and a popular skating rink in the winter.

Now, though, the Tasman Glacier has shrunk in both length and height, so water no longer flows into the Blue Lakes from the glacier. In addition, warmer rainwater now feeding the lake supports green algae, making the lakes green. One upside is that the Blue Lakes now support large numbers of native fish.

The fabulous weather we'd enjoyed and been spoiled by recently was disappearing in front of our eyes, as we looked back toward the valley where we'd started our hike. 

By the time we reached the Tasman Lake Viewpoint, the weather was so poor that there was little to see of the Tasman Glacier, the nation's longest and largest. From an elevation of 3,000 meters, it had previously stretched for 27 kms and 4 kms wide. Since it began retreating, the viewpoint from Tasman Lake has moved much farther away from the glacier's face. By 2011, it had shrunk so rapidly that the glacier had been reduced in length by 3 kms. Shockingly, the glacier is expected to measure only 20 kms long by next year. According to scientists, the Tasman Glacier might not even be there in 50 years, as it's already receded so much.

Even though we'd known of the glacier's rapid retreat when we started out, we'd hoped to have amazing views of Tasman Lake and the surrounding mountains. However, that was not to be!

Unfortunately, the views were so dismal that we could only barely see a few small icebergs at one end of the lake. Diana: Did you and David see much more than this when you were here?

Though we'd hoped to hike more than this, the rain and fog didn't make for optimum hiking conditions, so we decided to bail. As we drove, we thought the traffic-calming measures seemed odd, as the road narrowed so much in spots that only one car could pass. It felt like the tightening of the number eight in the middle!

As we drove south along Lake Pukaki, the weather gods confounded us with a smidge of blue sky, to the point where we wondered whether we should return to Aoraki again and see if the hiking conditions had improved!

Since time for once was on our side, we stopped at Peter's Lookout near the south shore of the lake. It was described as having one of the best vantage points across to Aoraki, New Zealand's highest mountain at 3,724 meters. The lookout once sat atop a terrace above a much smaller, shallower Lake Pukaki. But the damming of the lake at the southern end for hydroelectricity had almost doubled the lake's length and increased its height by nearly 50 meters. That resulted in the submergence of Te Kōhai, a significant landmark near the lake's outlet that once appeared on New Zealand five-pound notes.

Though this was one of the country's most scenic and photographed spots, the view of Aoraki was at risk of being obscured by wilding pines just a few years ago. Efforts to restore the land surrounding the lookout by removing the pines and planting native species to help enhance the area's biodiversity have paid off.

As I wrote in prior posts, wilding pines, or wilding conifers, have become an environmental and economic problem here, as they have elsewhere. They take over productive farmland and the landscapes people love for recreation and tourism; they fuel more intense wildfires than tussock land and pasture, and can reduce water flow essential for irrigation and hydroelectricity. 

The seeds of wilding pines, which are not native to New Zealand, are spread by the wind and can infest neighboring landmany kilometers away. It's estimated that just one wilding pine species can produce 150,000 seeds per year. Removing super-spreaders is critical to managing the spread of wilding pine in this region. 

Next post: The thrill of a lifetime in Quenstown for an adrenaline junkie!

Posted on June 10th, 2026, on our last night in Tainan, Taiwan, and just a week before we're flying to San Francisco to spend a few precious days with our son and his family. It's almost impossible to think we've been 'on the road' for nearly three months, as the time has just flown by. Taiwan has been far less 'developed' and therefore more challenging than we expected, which makes home sound far more attractive than it might otherwise have been at the end of a long trip. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.

4/13/26: Magical Scenery from Greymouth-Arthur's Pass & onto Twizel!

When Steven and I'd visited Hokitika the day before, we spent some time wandering through several fancy showrooms selling pounamu, or New Zealand jade. We were put off, however, by the high prices at the upscale shops where the tour buses stopped. After talking it over, we decided to return to an independent shop the next morning, which made all its items on-site in its factory and therefore sold them with less markup.

We ended up buying four lovely items from Ruma, the shop's owner, to display at home. I've completely forgotten what they look like now, since it was so long ago, and we shipped them home six plus weeks ago. It'll be like having a second Christmas when we finally open up the two parcels waiting for us!

From Hokitika on the South Island's West Coast, we had a long drive ahead of us, crossing almost to the island's east coast, then back inland, southwestward through the mountains, to Twizel. As the crow flies, it would have been comparatively short, but it was almost a 500-km journey on two-lane roads and one-lane bridges for mere mortals!

Even though sheep outnumber people three to one in New Zealand, we swore we'd seen more cattle than sheep so far, and by far!

Shortly after entering Arthur's Pass National Park, we passed the Historic Otira Stagecoach Hotel, which had been voted "New Zealand's most interesting cafe." We didn't try the coffee, but the items out front were quirky enough!

The only route through the park was the drive through the 12-km-long, 16-percent-grade Otira Gorge, with stunning views at every turn. The Otira Gorge Road, aka State Highway 73, aka Arthur's Pass Road, aka Main Road, aka Main West Coast Road, and also known as the Great Alpine Highway, was considered an important part of the country's engineering heritage, as men toiled through the terrible winter of 1865 to cut a coach road from Christchurch on the East Coast to the West Coast's gold fields. 

A view from where we'd just driven from the Otira Gorge Rock Shelter Scenic Lookout:

I hope you can sense the majesty of the views we enjoyed of the Otira Viaduct, even though it was also called Death's Corner! The crossing is the highest crossing in the country's Southern Alps.

Even though the plaque memorialized someone's passing, we had to smile at the sentiment.

This historic red cottage in Arthur's Pass Village served as housing for railway workers constructing the Otira Tunnel in the early 20th century. 

Next to the red cottage stood the last corrugated-iron cottage, Gaya Cottage, originally the home of an engineer working on the tunnel. The park's first ranger lived there from 1929 until 1937. Since the tunnel was completed, it has been used as a holiday rental. Its owners won a Canterbury Heritage Award for its retention and restoration. 

Keas, endangered, highly intelligent mountain parrots only found in the alpine and forested regions of the South Island, are occasionally killed because some people consider them a nuisance and a threat to private property and farm animals. They also destroy seats and hydraulics in heavy machinery and other equipment. Kea have been traded illegally to international markets.

We backtracked to hike the Devil's Punchbowl Walking Track, which would take us across Bealey River and a 150-meter climb before reaching the base of Punchbowl Falls. 

When work began on the Otira Tunnel in 1908, footbridges were built across the Bealey River to access the power station that supplied electricity to the tunnel. The track to Punchbowl Falls became a very popular route for climbing Mt. Aiken and reaching the falls. The 1948 footbridge was made of three wires!

The current footbridge has been continually upgraded over the years following major floods in the Beasely River.

As Arthur's Pass had become a holiday village by 1926, Herbert and Annie Brown built this cottage as their holiday home that year. They called it Āniwaniwa, the Māori name for a rainbow, which is sometimes seen at the base of the falls. The home's simple design and the use of stone as the primary building method marked the beginning of a style of construction that became distinctive to Arthur's Pass. 

The Punchbowl Falls had been admired by visitors to the Bealey Valley from where we stood since the 1860s. Until the early 20th century, the pool at the foot of the falls was called Devil's Punchbowl, and the waterfall itself was the Zealandia Falls. With a 131-meter drop, the Devil's Punchbowl waterfalls have been a favorite among visitors and their spectacular beauty has been captured by numerous artists.

The first photos of the waterfall were likely taken by Christchurch photographer Daniel Mundy when he traveled over the then-new coach road in 1868.

At several points along the track, we would be standing above the Otira railway tunnel, which was built between 1908 and 1918. When the tunnel was drilled from both sides, the two headings met in 1918, and their alignment and levels were accurate to within 3 cm!

Faced with more flights of steps, Steven said, "OMG, they keep going." A while later, we asked a woman coming down how much further it was, and she said we'd come about 60 percent of the way, and that it was worth plogging on. Unfortunately, she wasn't wildly enthusiastic about it, however.

The view through and over the treetops:

Considering Steven had one unsuccessful back surgery a year ago, is facing a more invasive one in early July, and is in constant pain, it was no small feat that he not only made it to the base of the stunning falls but was also smiling!

I read that the Māori associated natural features in the landscape with ancestors or their actions. Their stories linked people to their landscape and reflected the inseparable ties between the natural and human world. 

After reaching the bottom of the track, we didn't dilly-dally any longer, as we still had a five-hour drive ahead of us to reach Twizel.

A view of the Waimakariri River meandering through a gravelly valley:

As it was fall in the Southern Hemisphere, the trees had already turned shimmering shades of yellow and gold as we drove along the Inland Scenic Route. We were within a 45-minute drive of Christchurch on the East Coast, a city we'd visit for a couple of days at the end of our New Zealand vacation, but we headed southwest toward the center of the South Island.

If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought we were looking at a painting!

Finally, some sheep!

OMG views of the Rakaia Gorge near the town of Windwhistle:

We had never previously seen field after field bordered by massive hedges on three sides, with each one manicured to the same height and depth. They were so strange. We figured the hedges were likely a windbreak.

Magical ...

We noticed that there was a chill in the air, and the fall colors were more striking the further southwest we drove.

St Patrick's Union Church in Burkes Pass was built in 1872 and was the oldest surviving union church in the country. Since I hadn't heard that term before, I thought you might be interested to know that it refers to congregations where multiple denominations share the same building, minister, and resources.

Close to sunset, the Southern Alps near Pukaki were an almost unbelievable pastel pink.

As a final send-off, here's a shot of turquoise-colored Lake Pukaki before we reached Twizel that night. It seemed like Steven and I had been lucky enough that day to witness every color of the rainbow, and even a rainbow itself, on the jaw-dropping drive from Greymouth to Twizel!

Next post: Epic views en route to, and of, Mt. Cook aka Aoraki.

Posted on June 7th, 2026, from Tainan, Taiwan, where we've seen just a few temples since we arrived yesterday! We're not yet "templed out," but give us a day or two, and we just might be. However, since we're still discovering something new to admire and no two are alike, the temples remain a big draw for us. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.