by We woke up early on Wednesday morning and had a breakfast of sorts. We were out of proper coffee, so Mum made flasks of instant coffee even though she hates the stuff. When a small dog visited our motel room that morning, I could see why so many people prefer dogs to other people. We made our way down the ribbon-like West Coast. The leaves of straight-trunked rimu trees hung down, and other trees and bushes were sculpted by the wind – it was a rugged and at times sinister world that felt a long way from the East. Moving to the West Coast wouldn’t be easy – no matter how long you’d been there, you’d never be one of them. Saying that, look at what I did seven years ago. Again we were lucky with the weather. We stopped for our instant coffee at lovely Lake Mahinapua with the reflection of the mountains in the water, then at Lake Ianthe. This was all uncharted territory for me – though I’d been to the West Coast before, I’d never been south of Hokitika. We hopped from one DOC site to the next, remarking at how great an asset all these sites are to the country.
We arrived at Fox Glacier, the day’s destination, in mid-afternoon. During my brother’s New Zealand interlude in 2012-13, he was based there. He took people up for tandem parachute jumps. A couple of years earlier, on the day of the first major Christchurch earthquake, a parachuting plane crashed, killing all nine people on board. The aftermath of the crash was a controversial mess; evidence was literally buried. While Dad dozed in the car, Mum and I walked to the Fox Glacier lookout point – not a short trek anymore because the glacier has retreated so much. Later in the day we had another longish walk to Lake Matheson, which is situated a short distance from the glacier. Matheson is famous for its photo opportunity – a perfect reflection – but the best of the day’s weather had gone and the water was choppy. The walk around Matheson was peppered by rimu and totara trees. There were also lancewoods that evolved in an interesting way. During the time of the moa, lancewoods developed bone-like spiky structures until they grew nine feet tall, so their leaves above that height would be out of the moa’s range.
We arrived at our motel room in Fox to a rare and spectacular 180-degree rainbow. The room was much more spacious and comfortable than the one at Greymouth, but after a lovely day – albeit one in which I struggled with my sinuses – things turned sour in the evening. Booking motel rooms – one night at a time, each taking hours – had become a very stressful pursuit for Mum. It didn’t help that I’d thrown a spanner into the works by scheduling a two-hour lesson for the following evening, but Mum was unreasonably angry at everything and everybody. I found a place in Alexandra on Agoda instead of the usual booking.com, and to my great relief I convinced her to book it. We played Skip-Bo yet again. It was a long game: cards didn’t move easily from our stacks. Mum built up a useful lead but I kept coming back until we both needed to shift just one card to win. Mum pipped me – phew – and drew even with Dad at four games apiece; I remained one behind.
