Fox Glacier

Chris was still feeling pretty ill this morning so we had a slow start to the day. The weather was also not so great with low lying clouds and occasional drizzle. We decided that rather than look at the walls of the total room for the day, we would drive north to Fox Glacier. As you can see, it was a pretty dismal day. Also, I somehow forgot the Nikon so all of todays photos are from the iPhone.

It was about an hour and half drive to the town of Fox Glacier. I hadn't had breakfast and Chris hadn't eaten since yesterday so we decided to go to the cafe at Lake Matheson for lunch. Chris wasn't up for any kind of a walk so I got a couple of photos from the cafe of the view of Mt Cooke which you can't see because of the cloud.

We drove to the parking area near the base of the Fox Glacier. Chris wanted to have a nap in the car so I did the one hour hike to the viewing area of the glacier. As you can see from the sign, it has been in major recession since 2008, just like the economy. This and the nearby Franz Joseph glacier are some of the fastest moving in the world due to the amount of snowfall (14 metres) and the fact that they terminate in a semi-tropical rainforest. They move at around 30 cm per day at the bottom.

I saw a couple more Wicked camper vans to add to my collection...

Chris was still not feeling well so we drove back to our motel in Haast for the evening. Hopefully she will feel OK for a helicopter ride tomorrow but it doesn't look promising. An additional fear factor was a fatal tourist helicopter crash in Queenstown today with a heli-golf company.