After Queenstown I ventured to the west coast to Fox Glacier. The journey up to Fox took a number of hours by coach but this meant I got to see more of New Zealand without actually staying in places. The plan when I got here was to do a certain activity however when we got up on the day we were told it was cancelled so I had to find something el...

Left Barrytown and headed south for the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, stopping for lunch next to Lake Ianthie. We then arrived at Franz Josef but decided to carry on to Fox where it was quieter. We decided to visit the Franz Josef glacier first and did the Sentinel Rock walk where you got a good viewpoint of the glacier. We then went to the Fran...

Left the lovely views of Wanaka today and headed for Fox Glacier via Route 6 (the only road route). The scerny remained great and subtly changed from snowy moutains to steep valleys covered in trees followed by wild and rugged coastal areas. Visited a place called Blue Pools on the way, with lovely, clear blue water with rainbow trout and popped...

The train journey from Christchurch to Greymouth is one of the most scenic journeys in the world. Or so I'm told. Sadly, I slept really badly on my last night in Christchurch - I kept having nightmares about being marched around the town by a vicious German woman (see previous entry). Despite the double espresso I downed before we left, all I re...

Hello again, Well we're on the road again. We drove from Te Anau to Arrowtown. The views are gorgeous. We keep taking breathtaking pictures, only to realize it's all mountains, lakes, and waterfalls. The water is so clear and blue here. And it's all the water, from the sea to lakes and streams. I am enlosing a few pictures to prove it. Another o...

The laughing squawks of mischievous kea (mountain parrots) rouses me. I get up early to grab a place on today's full-day guided glacier walk. The guides had been busy yesterday helping cut a path and winch out rucksacks from the valley where the Kiwi bus tumbled. No one was seriously injured in the accident, except for one passenger left with a ...

Ok, I had grand ideas about keeping a blog as we traveled, well that didn't happen. So now that I am home I will put up some pics and blog. The four hour Fox Glacier climb was totally awesome under bright blue skies. The massive glacier had us peeling off layers as we hiked to the entry point and upon arriving at the edge, we proceeded to put t...

Wow...what a cool experience! Not only did we go for a 2 hour hike across the Fox glacier, crawling through ice holes and climbing through ice caves, but we took a helicopter ride to get there. The day started in near disaster by the heli-trek being cancelled due to bad weather. Luckilly though we got onto another one later in the day. Worth han...

What a fantastic day this turned out to be. We took a full day guided glacier hike, (the 'Nimble Fox Walk' as it has been newly branded), with our very chatty and knowledgable guides Rebecca and Cornelia. The skies were blue for most of the day, but of course, being West coast, we had to have a little bit of rain for the full experience, and to ...

We arrived at the Fox Glacier township mid morning and did a valley walk around the glacier to the glacier ice terminal. Then we went on a walk through a forest crossing over various streams until we rwached a lookout point. We were even luckly enough to hear a thunderous/cracking noise of the glacier breaking off onto the river below due to nat...