{"id":30840,"date":"2017-03-17T02:24:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T01:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peregrinusmundi.com\/sur-la-route-jackson-bay-a-cape-foulwind\/"},"modified":"2020-07-06T10:04:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T08:04:18","slug":"on-the-road-jackson-bay-to-cape-foulwind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peregrinusmundi.com\/en\/on-the-road-jackson-bay-to-cape-foulwind\/","title":{"rendered":"On the road. Jackson Bay to Cape Foulwind"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Jackson Bay is a tiny part of the world. The road stops at the small fishing village at the end of the bay. Beyond that, is untouched wilderness. The West Coast region stops, Fiordland begins. Apart from a few adventurous and fishermen, not many people push the visit to Jackson Bay. About fifty quiet kilometers through meadows, rainforests and the seaside. Along the coast, I saw dolphins making jumps in the waves.<\/p>

Jackson Bay was the landing point for settlers from the region. Today, tourists come here to taste fish n chips or crayfish at the Craypot, a tiny gargote painted in red whose fame is growing day by day. The food is good but a little expensive. I bivouac out of sight beneath a huge tree. Camping is not allowed in the area but I have nowhere else to go. After the restaurant\u2019s closing time, it is very quiet. Until the early hours of the morning when, after a splendid sunrise, fishermen of the area gather all together to start their day.<\/p>

I leave Jackson Bay early in the morning to return to Haast where I embark on the road towards the North. It is another New Zealand. Different from Fiordland. Different from the central plains. Different from the mountains. Coastal and tranquil New Zealand. The Far West kiwi. A thin strip of land wedged between the Tasman Sea on one side and the New Zealand Alps on the other. No big cities here. Just tiny towns that seem to live in the past. And the exuberant and magnificent nature. The road is very hilly and I spend the day on the bike. Ninety-six kilometers on the odometer. My longest day so far. I arrive at the small DOC campsite in the early evening. The place is located on the shore of Lake Paringa nestled in the mountains covered with rainforests. It is already full of tourists and backpackers. It speaks mostly German. The lake laps quietly in the heat of the end of the day. As in the entire Queenstown area, valleys and lakes are located on the site of former glaciers that have since disappeared. At nightfall the nocturnal birds wake up. A whole bunch of sounds echo in the dark. Some are extremely melodious. Nearby, an owl makes calls. Apart from a few sandflies looking for human skin to prick, the corner is quiet. In the sky, the moon is almost full.<\/p>

The next day the fog has invaded the valley. At dawn the lake is almost invisible through the mist. It will take a good hour for the moisture-laden cloud mass to begin to rise slowly. I continue on the hilly road towards Fox Glacier in the region of the coast called Glacier Country. Several glaciers descending from the mountains almost reach the sea. The small tourist village at the foot of Fox Glacier welcomes me at the end of the day under a cloud-laden sky. Lake Matheson is a must do for anyone passing by Fox Glacier, according to the brochure of the visits not to be missed in the area. The lake offers a perfect reflection of the Southern Alps and Mount Cook in the distance, which have drawn crowds since the first settlers settled in the region. Dawn and dusk are the best times of the day to view the postcard. That\u2019s when the lake\u2019s water is still. I go there as the night begins to fall and indeed the reflection is very beautiful. But the cries of the birds on the lake attract me more than the illusion on the water. They are almost invisible, hidden among the grasses by the shore. Some Pukekos (a kind of big hen of watery areas) show themselves, small spots of blue and red in the dark.<\/p>

The next day I go to see Fox Glacier. A path starts from the village to reach the glacier, winding through the rainforest. Here, green is predominant. Unlike the Central Plains region where I was a few days ago.<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0It is almost dazzling. The path goes down into the glacial valley, delimited by large vertical walls, to stop a few meters from the start of the glacier. The glacier has shrunk well over time and lacks a bit of panache.<\/p>

The next twenty kilometers on the road climb hard to pass the Three Sisters, three big steep climbs. I did not have the courage to cycle them and take the bus to reach Franz Joseph Glacier, the other big glacier in the region. In Franz Joseph, the weather is torrential rain. This does not prevent a visit to the glacier which, under the overcast weather, offers a probably more interesting vision. The path follows the valley for forty minutes. Twelve kilometers long, the glacier almost descends to sea level. As with Fox Glacier, Franz Josef has also shrunk over the years. A hole in the cloud mass just above the glacier gives it a magnetic aura. It seems to radiate. Large white mass descending from the mountains, its size, even from a distance is impressive. At the end of the path, the small observation point is swept by wind and rain. Difficult to stay here very long. The mountain looks threatening. But despite the difficult observation conditions, I have the strange feeling of contemplating the location at the best possible time. The place seems to have a mysterious aura.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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