Franz Josef and Fox Glacier

Another walking destination now - the twin glaciers of Franz Josef and Fox, about 21km from each other. It was a long drive here from Wanaka, made longer by an hour's round trip in the opposite direction. We only noticed we'd gone wrong when the road ran out and we weren't in Fox yet... Then found ourselves on entirely the wrong page of the map. If the road had carried on I think we'd have ended up back in Milford before we'd have noticed! Too much singing along to the stereo...! It was raining and miserable when we got here yesterday so we mooched around town, had a couple of drinks and went out for dinner, to save us having to cook in the rain. This morning the weather was much better so we set off (two hours later than the rest of the town as we couldn't be bothered to get up) for the big pile of ice that we had come so far to see. Our original intention was to take a four hour hike up to the glacier - until we realised you could actually drive up to the glacier and cut the walk down to an hour and a half. Well, why spend all that money on a van just to wear out your shoe leather? It was still quite a march up to the glacier, over a rocky riverbed. Andy slipped through the safety barrier as many people seemed to be doing to get closer to the glacier, I took the opportunity to rest my legs. It was certainly impressive. It moves at a rate of 1m a day apparently, uncommonly fast for a glacier, and until 1983 was retreating - its now advancing again. No idea why (Andy might know). after that strenuous activity we drove to Lake Matheson and had our lunch then an hours walk to the viewing platform for Mount Cook, which unfortunately was wreathed in cloud. The lake itself was very pretty although an odd reddish brown colour. Last but not least we headed to Fox glacier, where we contented ourselves with a five minute walk up to a viewing point from the car park.

Lake Matheson and Mount Cook on a a nicer day...