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Jonny Member Member#: 394 Location: North West Registered: 06-10-2003 Diary Entries: 350 Mood: waitin for the next blow! |
11th March 2005 Canyoning - Gorging: Fox Glacier - NZ Wind Direction: Katabatic cold winds down Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: 10C Sea Temperature: Weather: Sunshine Max Speed: Distance Covered: The day before was a complete washout on the isloated west coast of the South island. The 3 or 4 main towns along the w. coast only have populations of 6,000 so you can be in complete wilderness a minutes drive off the highway pretty much anywhere along the west coast. The scenery is amazing though when its not raining which is not that often. The whole area is spoilt quite a bit by the biting sandflies that are just everywhere. The highlight of yesterdays journey was arriving in Greymouth an hour after a powerful tornadoe had struck. All the roads had been sealed of everywhere by locals so I parked up to see what all the fuss was about. I was quite lucky as the very few police hadnt been able to seal of the area so I had a qucki look around all the devestation. It was amazing seeing bits of timber, corrogated iron from roofs, smashed windowns all over the streets. SOme of the houses were a comlplete wreck and one of the main buildings in the towns gable end wall had collapsed. A bus and a lorry ahd been rolled onto there sides and the local video shop had its videos strewn across all the local streets as it had its roof completely torn of as well as all its large windows smashed. There were power lines down everywhere and you had to literally step over them to get past to cross the street. The image that stuck out for me was seeing a length of 3*3 timber compltely stuck in a car tyre. If that had hit someone, it would of killed them instantly. There were only a handful of people with minor injuries and the worst injury was a woman who was trapped under a campervan that rolled on its side. It was amazing seeing the destruction before the police organuised themselves to seal of the area. Its probably the only chance I'l ever got to see the destrcution of a tornadoe for real in my lifetime. back to my diray entry: After the torrential rain the day before, I thought the chances of going up the glacier would be diminished but it was a glorious day. Before the hike up the glacier. I had a quick walk around Lake Matheson at dawn where you could see Mt.Cook and Mt. Tasman reflecting in the lakes water, absolutely out of this world stunning scenery. The hike up the glacier lasted all day and it was great fun. We only climbed up 400m of the glacier and then it strte to get really difficult as there were lethal crevasses everywhere. The glacier is very active and moves over 85cm a day which is quite a lot and far more than the swiss glaciers so theres always big lumps of ice falling at the terminal face. The torrential rain the day beforfe meant there was lots of large rockfall everwhere which was very impresive. A great day out and definately worth 25quid for the day |
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