Rainy Day & Windy Beach

Wednesday 29 January

What to do at Fox Glacier when the rain sets in?

Woke around 4am as the rain battered on Banjo’s roof - but this time none of it was dripping through 🎉

Woke again at 7ish and the rain was still hammering down - views of the mountains reduced to zero. I amused myself by pottering around the campsite in my PJs and a plastic poncho (so fashionable!) and also catching up on my blog which was about a fortnight out of date! I was particularly excited to come across a coverless edition of Cookery in Colour by Marguerite Patten - these gloriously dated recipes included such delicacies as semolina mousseline (bottom left) and corned beef cutlets shaped like 2D chicken legs and finished with a paper hat (upper middle right).

We booked a session in the campsite hot tub around lunchtime which was lovely then finally the sun began to break through weakly, but mostly out westward.

So we drove out to Gillespie’s Beach on the Wild West coast to check out the mining relics and get some exercise. Named for James Gillespie who found gold here in April 1866. Within a month, a mining community of 600 or more had settled here with over 500 working the sands for gold. Within 6 months the place had largely given up its wealth and reduced the population to 150, which further reduced the following year when gold was found at Haast. Quotations from the time describe a frontier, wild west mentality - quarrelsome men working the beach, drinking and carousing - and the township was described as "the most god-forsaken place imaginable."

The mining relics were fascinating - but I was shocked to read that the dredger which is slowly rusting away in a pond was from as late as WW2 where it was used to dredge for uranium for the war effort - however the level of radioactivity was too low to make it economically viable.

From the dredge we followed the forest track to the lagoon. The whole path comprised layer upon layer of round flat grey stone which was surprisingly pleasing to walk on. Walking through the bush was almost spooky with gnarly wind bent trees and the usual array of hanging lichens and ferns.

We popped out onto the beach, and walked on down to the lagoon which was backed by an incredible piece of uplifted ground - a geography/geology teacher's ultimate fantasy! We watched the crashing waves, spotted a seal then walked back up the beautiful stony shoreline straight into a forceful wind, back to the car.

This is truly what Aotearoa is all about!

Heading back we paused at the Fox Glacier viewpoint but the blue skies had not reached into the Land of the Long White Cloud so there was nothing to see, so home to dinner it was!