Bloody geese. They had been
circling our home and gabbing off since stupid o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t
the best of views to wake up to be honest. A gravelly……”area” is the best way
to describe it, just off from the main road. But it had been quite enough and
near a stream too, so we were more than happy with it. The weather wasn’t
looking too chipper either, so it looked like the walk on Fox’s Glacier wasn’t
gonna happen. I knew there were plenty of other ways I could spend $109, and I
would still get to walk up to the glacier anyways.
First things first though
(obviously), we were to drive into the town at Fox Glacier and go for a walk
round Lake Matheson. It is supposedly one of the “101 Kiwi Things To Do” and
the picture in the guidebook looked great. The picture in real life wasn’t though.
Mainly because of the carpet of grey that hug above us, just like being in
Manchester. It was still good, but with clear blue skies and a nice bit of
sunshine it would have just made everything look that little bit better. And
there were more geese. Shouting their mouths off all day and generally ruining
the peace and quiet. It was about an hour and a bit to get all way round the
lake and it certainly got the blood pumping after a chilly morning start. Next
up was lunch and then the Fox Glacier just round the corner.
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| Hmmmm, cloudy again... |
I had bought a jar of jam (although
nowhere near as nice as Coco’s strawberry preserve) in the first Big Shop in
the north island and I had realised that I would need to make my way through it
before leaving Christchurch in just over a weeks time. So I am now having it
with pretty much anything going, morning, noon and night. But it certainly puts
you in the right frame of mind to climb (up to) a glacier. As we had done the
Franz Josef one the day before we knew what to encounter, so we wrapped up good
and warm and set off along the rocky path.
Apparently you could get much
closer to Fox than Franz Josef, and we were eager to get to the terminal face
and get a closer look. The approach was much shorter and not as impressive as
Franz Josef, but the view near the end was far better, around 200 meters from
the ice itself. But that was all there was to do really, and it left us with
plenty of time to drive to Haast, our next port of call. Along the way we
stopped off at a few places of interest. Bruce Bay was fantastic, with waves
crashing against the shore and hundreds of polished white marble stones with
names and/or messages on them. We, of course, added our own so if you are ever
visiting the area take a look around Bruce Bay and see if you can see mine and
James’s stones. The first one I saw mentioned Yorkshire, which made me chuckle.
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| Exactly what it says on the tin |
The campsite in Haast was
perfectly lovely, once we had found it, and I made full use of the barbecue to
cook some merguez sausages for me dinner. We couldn’t find any Premier League
Highlights on the telly so we backed up photos and videos (which will become
more and more frequent after the Rotorua incident) and brought out the deck of
well-thumbed cards. The best card game never invented still needs some work,
but I think we’re getting there…
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