Stop 5: Fox Glacier

After my adventure out of Karamea I headed down to Fox Glacier. The bus stopped at the Pancake Rocks (pictures below) on the way down for a quick look around (along with a few other stops).

 

 Then we got into Fox Glacier. In the morning I woke up ready to walk to the glacier and they told me it was a whole 5 k (3 miles) away. I shrugged my shoulders and went on my way. Fortunately most of the walk was on a nice trail and it was well worth the walk.

See what I would have missed had I not walked.

Fox Glacier

view of the glacier from afar

walking track back from the glacier

The glacier was pretty neat. Fox and Franz Joseph (right down the road) glaciers are the closest glaciers to the ocean anywhere in the world. This is such a small country that you find a lot of extremes very close to each other that isn't normal. I walked back into town and since Lake Matheson was a whole 5k in the other direction I decided to catch the shuttle. Its an absolutely beautiful lake and it is so smooth that Mt. Cook reflects perfectly into the water. I was told that its the most used photographic views for NZ stuff. The water wasn't perfectly smooth when I was there, but it was still pretty neat.

 I left Fox Glacier on a bus to Queenstown. It had to be one of the most beautiful bus rides ever and I definitely want to go back with a car where I can make stops. Unfortunately I have no pictures because I created a "no pictures from behind windows" rule for myself. They never turn out good. We did stop to take a picture of the waterfall below though. At one point I had fallen asleep and I opened my eyes at one of the most perfect scenes I had ever seen, and in a few seconds it was gone. Made me never want to shut my eyes. The trip took us between two lakes and it was just absolutely stunning.

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