Arthur’s Pass

So from the wine tastings in Blenheim we cruised on down the east coast through Kaikoura and on towards Christchurch constantly surprised by the raw beauty of the rugged coastline. After a last minute overnight stay in the outskirts of Christchurch where we saw only brief pockets of the devastation caused by the huge Earthquake that leveled virtually the whole city centre, we pushed on towards our next destination – the Franz Josef glacier over on the West Coast. To get there we had to cross over the Southern Alps, taking the renowned Arthurs Pass route, a twisting, winding, majestic road that wiggles through the heart of the Southern Alps following a route discovered by Arthur Dobson in 1864. Apparently when he first encountered the precipitous Otira Gorge, the pass was almost impassable – he had to leave his horse at the top and lower his dog on a rope! This is one of the truly great roads to drive in New Zealand and we hit it with gusto in our little Toyota hire car, it was just a shame the car didn’t have the same guts in return as it struggled up the hills.

In the middle we stopped at Arthurs Pass Village for a quick hike up to the Devils Punch Bowl waterfall, and had lunch in the Wobbly Kea, first founded by German immigrant Oscar Coberger in 1929 who was a successful mountain guide and ski instructor as well selling imported European climbing equipment – apparently Sir Edmund Hillary bought his first ice axe from him.

We would have loved to stay and do some more hikes but our hurried schedule meant we had to push on as we had some miles to cover to get to Franz Josef before end of day. The Arthurs Pass road is also an impressive feat of engineering with many bridges, viaducts, rockfall shelters and diverted waterfalls all testament to man’s achievements in bringing civilization to remote inaccessible areas. Just outside of AP village we came across “Death’s Corner” lookout. This was where the original road had crossed right through the middle of a giant scree slope as at the time the road was first built it was the only logical way through but entirely bonkers given the ever-present danger of rockslides. Thankfully a new viaduct has been built safely out of the line of rock fire but a quick stop to walk on the old road brought home what an imposing pass it was.

After another hour or so of driving and we had crossed the country from coast to coast and turned South toward Franz Josef. The coastline here was still impressive but for me at least didn’t quite have the same untamed rawness and drama of the east coast. Still a sea view is a sea view and I’ll take it any day 🙂 !