Days 27 Nov 22 2024

We continued our wander down the West Coast. The West Coast has many good things. One of them is that it is (almost) impossible to get lost. There is only one road, State Highway 6.

We were heading to Franz Joseph to see the glacier. On route we were going to visit the town of Ross.

Ross was, in some ways still is a gold mining town. It was founded during the West Coast Gold Rush of 1864 – 68. Do not confuse this with the Otago Gold Rush of 1861. That event was significant in New Zealand’s history. It marked the country’s largest gold strike. This led to a large influx of miners, including many from California and Victoria, Australia.

While the town of Ross has not been preserved in aspic, some of the gold rush era buildings remain. Most Notably the Empire Hotel. Several other buildings have been restored. These include the Bank of New South Wales, a typical miner’s cottage, and the local jail. The local Catholic Church, St Patrick’s dates from that era as well. The church name probably indicates the origin of a significant proportion of the miners.

The restored Bank of New South Wales has a small museum, dedicated to gold mining in Ross. The largest gold nugget ever found in New Zealand, “The Honorable Roddy”, was found in Ross. Mining continued up until 1990, but the town of Ross is estimated to sit on about $700M of gold reserves. So who knows.

We took a walk up to the miners cemetery. It is a fair way up a steep hill. It was hard work walking up there, what it would have been like carrying a coffin I can only imagine. People died young in the gold fields, often drowning. One gravestone I found particularly poignant.

I’m not sure that this implies that he committed suicide. It is possible, that, never having found the gold he had hoped for, he turned to drink and died young as a result.

We had a decent lunch at the Empire Hotel. Afterward, we set off down SH 6 for Franz Joseph and the glacier.

We discovered that the only way to get close up to the glacier is in a helicopter. The day we arrived in Franz Joseph, the cloud base was too low for the helicopters to fly. We settled for a walk up to see the terminal moraine. The flights start at about $280 per person, so we may have passed anyway.

In 1908, the glacier came down to where Diane and I are standing. The table below shows what has changed since then.

Year	World Population	CO2 Concentration	Global Average Temperature
1908	1,750,000,000	299 ppm	13.57oC
2016	7,450,000,000	405 ppm	14.87oC

Even as recently as 2009 the glacier came much further down the valley.

Today in 2024 the glacier has retreated still further.

We did actually manage to see the glacier. The cloud base lifted sufficiently that we caught a glimpse of it. But it is no longer permitted to walk up the valley, beyond the point where we were photographed.

The Defiance Hut was one of the original mountaineering huts in New Zealand. It has been relocated to the Franz Joseph visitor centre. When you are already there it is worth taking ten minutes to look around. It is part of the history of the glacier and mountaineering in New Zealand.