Style: January 08, 2020
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
64 STYLE | travel<br />
All guest rooms face into an internal square, where the rainforest is left intact.<br />
Baked rawaru<br />
(blue cod) with<br />
wild beetroot<br />
and red endive.<br />
Not so long ago, Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, unique<br />
in the world for descending to sea level, were highly<br />
accessible. The volatile Franz Josef moves faster than<br />
the average glacier too – at least 50cm per day. Since<br />
20<strong>08</strong> it has retreated 800 metres, most rapidly between<br />
2015 and 2017. Ice and rocks collapse continuously at<br />
the terminal face in haphazard chunks that can be larger<br />
than a campervan. And all that rainfall can see creeks<br />
rise to dangerous levels with little warning. To keep<br />
visitors safe, barricades now terminate the track 750m<br />
away from the glacier face. To get nearer, you must now<br />
join a guided tour.<br />
We fly alongside rugged forested slopes up the righthand<br />
side of the glacier far below and steeply climb some<br />
3000 metres. I’m shocked at how long the rocky river<br />
now extends before it meets the snout of the ice flow,<br />
indicating how much the glacier appears to have shrunk<br />
since I last saw it in the late 1990s. Soon though, I am<br />
peering into the blue depths of ice crevasses compacted<br />
over thousands of years as the glacier splinters on the<br />
frozen bends of what is still a phenomenal 11km-long<br />
river of ice. Then I realise something else is amiss. The<br />
Te Waonui cuisine<br />
All guests enjoy a delicious buffet breakfast ahead of<br />
their day of sightseeing or retreating within Te Waonui.<br />
With Franz Josef a long day of tiring travel from any<br />
direction, Te Waonui recommends at least a two-night<br />
stay. The five-course degustation menu is perfect for<br />
the second night. Executive Chef Sylvester Nair hails<br />
from South Africa, where he was regularly on television<br />
demonstrating the talents that see me degusting<br />
smoked butternut soup with a turmeric foam, West<br />
Coast whitebait with a lemon and ponzu dressing,<br />
baked rawaru (blue cod) with wild beetroot and red<br />
endive, and a taste of my companion’s superlative<br />
horopito-rubbed lamb loin and a black truffle brie.
Change language