Fox Glacier

We arrived at the town for Fox Glacier quite late in the afternoon after a long drive from Wanaka, but found cheap accommodation easily enough at the local campsite. The next day we basically did all the short hikes in the area, including getting right up close and personal with the glacier itself. Both Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are famous because they are so accessible, especially Fox - the walk to the terminal face from the car park is only 15 minutes or so.

Many of the walks and hikes offer fantastic views of the glacier, and pass through lovely lush forest, but of course the highlight was standing right beneath the face of the very monster itself.

Again my favorite aspect of New Zealand culture came into play here, as although they do have a sign saying 'Extreme Danger' and a bit of string to fence off the glacier itself (about 200m metres from the face), it's quite clear that you can approach the glacier if you want to. I decided to wait for a bit first at the 'fence' though, and we ate our sandwiches sitting on a rock. Whilst there I saw a few people pop under the string fence and walk right up to the glacier (and I did notice one of them, a girl, touching the glacier and posing for photos while standing directly under a large overhang of ice, which I thought was a bit stupid of her). So after my sandwich I decided to make my own way to the glacier, while Sarah waited nervously at the 'Extreme Danger' sign.

Obviously I was very careful as I approached the glacier, and I made sure to ford the small glacial stream quickly (as there's always a danger of a strong surge apparently), and I never stood anywhere where an ice fall could affect me, and of course I didn't make any attempt to acually the climb the thing (apparently some epsilons do, and so it's not hard to understand how 'accidents' happen). But it was such a truly humbling experience to stand at the very foot of a 20m (or however high it is), high wall of craggy, jagged rock and ice. Part of the uniqueness of the experience for me was that I couldn't help but think of the glacier as a huge living thing, as apparently it's advancing at the rate of a meter a week (that's fast apparently), and so it's constantly shifting, morphing and creeking, with the constant sound of melt water dripping everywhere. I suppose I could sum it up by saying it was a very elemental experience, and was definitely one of the big highlights of the whole trip so far.

When I got back to Sarah I was raving a bit, telling her what an awe inspiring experience it was, and that if she wanted to I'd take her over to the terminal face of the glacier - genuinely though, I was very careful not to coerce her, as I knew she was nervous. She agreed to give it a go, and so I basically just retraced my steps, and we took a few photos of course. When we got back to the 'fence' she was delighted with herself, and actually apologised for being so nervous in the first place - but it really was nice to have shared such a powerful experience.

That night we went for a drink with a really nice German girl we met at our campsite, Annya (after playing toy soldiers (with my VB 'tank'), in the campsite kitchen with a couple cool kids on holiday wih their parents from Picton - the eldest kid had the weirdest way of prononucing 'Pict-ton' that I still can't get it out of head). Anyway, Annya was actually carrying out research into one of the world's only mountain parrots, the Kea, the same critters that tried to eat our deck chairs at Mount Cook.

The town that services tourists for Fox is tiny, so after 2 nights we drove up to the neighbouring glacier Franz Josef.