My friends flew out a day before me, so Wednesday was our last full day together. We started the day by going to see Franz Josef Glacier. The glacier is so far in retreat that you can’t really hike up to it. This is largely a safety consideration; while we were there, the river was in flood, so we were kept back even farther than usual. Not that we would have been able to handle an intense hike to really get up to the glacier, being felled respectively by an injured ankle, blisters, and re-aggravated shin splits/knee injury. To really get the full glacier experience, it is necessary to pay for a helicopter ride, either on its own or as part of a guided ice hike. It’d be really cool to do that someday, but it was beyond our budgets for this trip, so we just had a short visit to the glacier. It was still really cool to see though; the remarkable thing about Franz Josef and Fox glaciers is that they are glaciers surrounded by rainforest. It’s an incredible combination you rarely get to see, because rainforests usually exist in places too warm for glaciers. The striking contrast definitely made it worth the visit, despite the distance from which we had to view the glacier. Besides, you never know how long those glaciers will be there. Just in the 150 years since Europeans first saw Franz Josef, it has retreated significantly. Based on the diagrams we saw, I’d guess at least half a kilometer.
On the way out of town, we stopped at a kiwi breeding center. The rowi kiwis, which live in the area around the glaciers, are the rarest species of kiwi. All kiwi species are endangered, but rowi numbers are down into the hundreds. The center in Franz Josef has been breeding these birds to help get their numbers up, so you can go into the center and see live kiwis. As kiwi are nocturnal, the room in which the birds live was dark — lit only by red lights — to make it seem like night and therefore allow visitors to see the birds while they’re active. Kiwis can’t see red light. Oh my goodness, kiwis are adorable. They’re these little fluff balls with legs and a beak. Don’t be fooled by the cuteness, though; these little birds are powerful runners. Their leg muscles are 30% of their body mass, and few humans could outrun an adult kiwi. Such incongruous little birds – fluffy and cute, powerfully fast, and flightless. It was great to be able to see kiwis, the national bird and one of the worldwide symbols of the country, before leaving New Zealand.
That afternoon we drove to Hokitika, an adorable West Coast seaside town. Our bird-themed hostel was very comfortable and had ocean views. After we checked in, we went to explore the town. About half of the shops were focused on handicrafts, which was very interesting. There was an adorable wool shop that had sock-making machines, a couple of jade-carvers workshops, a glass-blowing shop, and a little store owned by a man who paints rocks with pictures of kiwis. Watching the glass blowing was amazing. The men were so deft and unhesitating; they made it look so easy, but based on the prices they asked for the wineglasses they were making, I could tell that a lot of skill goes into that work.
After we left the glassworks, we walked past the town’s theater. One of my friends remarked that she thought that the premier of Star Wars VII was that night; at that exact moment, the woman inside of the theater, seeing us examining the show schedule, popped her head out and told us that they were indeed showing the midnight premier that night. We looked at each other. “Should we do it? It’s our last night, and we’re driving to Christchurch tomorrow. On the other hand, it’d be such a fun way to end our trip…and we’d get to see it 21 hours before it premiers in California. … Let’s just go for it!” So, on a whim, we bought tickets that cost us less than 9 US dollars to see the midnight premier of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the tiny little town of Hokitika, New Zealand. We went back to the hostel, ate dinner, packed up our bags for the next day, and tried to sleep for a couple hours. This was the first time I’d ever been to the midnight premier of a movie, and I was very excited. Both of my friends were rather groggy when we got up to drive back into town, but I was bouncy and wide awake, hair braided into Princess-Lea-like plaits. I won’t give anything away, but the movie was fantastic. We had such a great time.
On the way back from the movie – it was just before three in the morning – we stopped by the Hokitika glow worm dell. We walked a couple hundred yards into the woods from the parking lot, and suddenly I caught my breath in awe. In front of us was a wall of stars come down to earth. In the darkness, the glowworms were bright and beautiful and clear the way the stars were in Chillagoe. Seeing that after Star Wars was so perfect, and such a special way to end our last full day together.
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