Today was mainly a day of driving. An early start, I was on the road by 6:30am, and it was quiet! Mind you, it was also quiet at 9am, 10am etc. I could see the mountains, but they never seemed to get any closer
I wanted to get to a glacier, earlier the better as I knew I had a big drive to Queenstown after. I went through Franz Josef but nothing seemed to be open, so thought I’d try the good old Fox Glacier (as it must be minty fresh!) Slight misunderstanding with the signs. One said Access, the other View. I’d read about unfortunate people being hurt by falling ice and not to go on without a guide, so, as I had no guide, wanted view. It worked out quite well as I happened across a very quiet car park, and a lovely trail down to the river, to this
So access it was. There was a sign showing where the glacier was 80 years ago, and it was maybe 2 km further down the valley. You could see from the car park, it was fairly recently uncovered as there was no vegetation at all
And there it was. It was a shame not to be able to get on it, but I wasn’t going to put my life on it. All the time I was there, a constant buzz of helicopters was over head. It’s obviously big business with the heli-hikes. Time prevented me from that option sadly. I hope to come back so maybe then!
After that, I thought I’d stop at Lake Matherson which was a quick 5km circular walk around the lake. I saw this sign
and immediately thought, there’s not many places where you could pull that off, this was the view
I do have to disagree, as round the corner, I took this one (I had to lie on my front, much to the amusement of a group of Korean tourists. They were all doing it when I left though
With that it was on to Queenstown
The problem with there being no motorway however, is you see all the little signs for attractions, and have to stop. After maybe 50km, I was on the beach, looking back on the mountains. I think this place was called Bruce Bay
Then many more kilometres up the road, I saw something that just said Blue Pools. Guessing it was glacial (this was back in the mountains) it was exactly as described
The light was fading as I made the climb up Crown pass. Just this odd cloud formation and a snow capped peak
Arrived at the motel which is home for the next 3 days. Milford Sound and Exploring are the main plans