Glacier Country

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Next stop was Glacier Country. We arrived into Fox Glacier early afternoon from Greymouth, an old gold mining town, where we had stopped off for one night to break up the long journey down. We were only staying for a couple of nights so decided to walk up to Fox Glacier that afternoon. It was a really nice walk and we got some brilliant views from the viewing point of the glacier. We had planned on walking on the glaciers, I've done it previously with my parents, but due to the ever changing weather conditions and the speed the glaciers are melting at we weren't able to unless we took a helicopter journey to the top, which wasn't quite in budget unfortunately. That was a shame but it was still great to see and just as impressive! We enjoyed a chilled night in that evening and a few games of our new favourite thing, Ludo (22 going on 60). The next day we went to the Franz Josef glacier, the slightly larger and better known glacier in the neighbouring town. Unfortunately, unlike usual you weren't able to walk to the terminal face, only a viewing point 750m away where the glacier was obscured by cloud. We did walk to a raised viewing point which gave us a great view on how the glacier had receded over hundreds of years and carved a way through the valley. It also gave us a view of the upper part of Franz Josef glacier before it disappeared behind the mountains. This part of New Zealand is beautiful. Blue mineral rich rivers that flow throughout the region alongside the rugged mountains and bush made the drive completely worth it. Today, Friday 26th, we left Fox Glacier to carry on down to our next port of call Queenstown! We stopped for a morning coffee at Lake Matheson Cafe where we got some amazing views of Mount Cook in the distance over our flat whites. A perfect way to start our day! We then continued our drive to Queenstown, driving through the scenic mountains and stopping to view the stunning Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka on our journey down.

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