Ropatini's Homestay B & B Fox Glacier

... with roasted veg- mainly pumpkin- yummy!

We were up early the next day to meet our Fox Guides tour in town. We had to wear some really hard boots- which made me walk with my knees up to my chin (well it felt like that), some really thick socks, gloves and a jacket- but I decided to test out my own rain jacket instead! As we got on the bus they handed us 'crampons' which are things you attach to your boots for walking on the glacier ...

... Fox Glacier is about 13km long and starts around 2500m high. It is unusual (for a glacier) in that it ends in a temperate rainforest (which we had to climb and descend through) – only a few hundred metres from sea level.

We made our way back to the bus via the 800 or so steps (down this time) and headed back to Fox Glacier township to drop off our hiking gear and crampons abut 18:30.

Following the hike, I headed out to Lake Matheson – renowned for its ...

... compare to the drive the next day into the Mount Cook National Park. Highway 80 is without doubt the most amazing scenic drive, one of the best , if not the best. It skirts the shore of Lake Pukaki, which is beautiful but then you round a bend to be faced with the magnificent sight of Mount Cook/Aoraki, the highest mountain in New Zealand. It took my breath away and if I have at times wondered why people have raved about New Zealand – I get it now – big time ...

... to dry off, but then I fell in two of the streams on the way back to the car park – didn’t find it funny at all as I was now soaking again! I was holding on to Luke on one occasion but instead of pull me up when I stumbled, he just let me fall in! useless!

It was a very tiring day, but it was really good and something totally different to anything we had ever done before. We were planning on driving south again that evening ...

... to walk on the immense glacier). The glacier is about 12km long and 6km at it's highest point. We would be walking to about the 4km point, but there was a 2.2km along the empty river bed to get to the glacier.

The huge block of ice is constantly moving as the sheer weight of it melts the ice underneath as it slowly slides around the valley. It was previously a growing glacier but in the past 8months has started ...

... breath-taking to see something like this is real life. The history behind it and that force of it is unbelievable. After the Fox we went further north to the Franz-Joseph. Again, amazing. We walked out on this field of rocks that were left from the glacier a couple hundred years ago. As we understand it, the glacier is still "alive" underneath the rocks. The ...

... tiny
detail for me that, my shoes kept misaligning out of the crampon!


6:00
PM - About a 20 minute drove continuing south, we end up at Fox Glacier
town, and find our hotel Fox Glacier Lodge. We got the most amazing
cabin, an entire cabin with ...

... voortkomt, was veels te groot. Dit soort afgelastingen komen slechts zo'n 3 keer per jaar voor en uitgerekend op de dag dat wij wilden gaan.
Maar goed, toch maar gewoon naar de gletsjer gereden en gelopen tot waar de bordjes verboden toegang" stonden (ja, echt mam! Niet verder.)
De tweede gletsjer (Fox Glacier) lag 30 km verderop, dus ook daar zijn we even heen geweest; we kwamen er toch langs en hadden alle tijd van de wereld nu.

... of the time allowing us some nice views. Then we climbed down, strapped crampons onto our boots and met the ice. It felt a little strange underfoot, like walking across a shattered car windscreen, and there were some deep crevasses and caves formed naturally as the ice is pushed down the valley by the weight of the snow up in the mountains behind. And just to make the terrain even more interesting there were also lots of steps and the occasional tunnel ...