Our South Island Adventure - A bit of relaxation sounds good

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We wake up to an absolutely beautiful day in Fox. Which is great because our first stop is Lake Matheson which is supposed to beautifully reflect the view of the Glacier. So we hurried through breakfast and headed as early as we could and no surprises that we were not the first there. We were very lucky actually as by 10ish the clouds started gathering around the top of the mountains. It was a beautiful view of the Glacier and watching the mist lifting off the water. We also had a lovely walk around the lake to stretch our legs and it gave us plenty of opportunities to see more of the view, it was only an hour excursion. It was a magical moment when we saw two ducks swimming across the water gently breaking the reflections. We loved the place so much with it's views of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman that we decided to relax for a bit and have a coffee and a very yummy slice of carrot cake before heading to view the Glacier from a bit closer.

It is like an hours return walk to see the Glacier and you get quite close to Fox. The signs are pretty clear that it is very dangerous to go any closer and I knew of the story of previous tourists who had died. There is not much I can say about the Glacier itself other than it is a big block of ice with amazing cracks and formations and a stunning colour of blue. It is pretty impressive to come and see. We had wanted to do some other walks as well but we had a hell of a time trying to park the van close to the other walks so we ended up giving up and heading to Frans Joseph.

We stayed at the campsite in town which also happened to be situated very close to the Glacier Hot Pools and a bit of relaxation sounded good. So we had a lingering lunch at the campsite before heading to enjoy the pools. It is Franz Joseph's newest tourist attraction so the facilities were still great. We had our own togs and towels but you can rent them for 5 dollars if you don't. They have 3 pools with temps varying from 36 to 40 with an open surrounding so you get close to nature. It did start getting crowded as the evening wore on so we decided that maybe 2 hours was enough for us anyway!

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Photos

Our Humble Abode
Fox Glacier