Leaving Wanaka, which is the southern end of the Southern Alps we drove up and through a small pass to get over to the Wild West Coast. It was a pleasant drive and we, again, were passing through amazing scenery. We arrived at our next destination: the town of Fox Glacier. We arrived early afternoon and decided to do one of the many tourist things in the area … hike around Lake Matheson. This is a famous Mirror Lake and, with the right conditions, you can take spectacular pictures. The owner of the hotel also told us to drive past the lake about 5 kilometers and you will have a great view back to the glacier for which the town is named: Fox.
The hike was really nice around the lake. Although the weather wasn’t perfect for photos, it still made for an excellent evening. Here’s a couple of photos of that hike.
You can see that it was overcast this day … it blocked some of the mountains.
Here’s one of those fern trees I mentioned in one of the previous posts … so cool.
We then took the owner’s recommendation and drove out to take a gander back at the glacier. Because it was overcast (low-lying clouds) the view of the glacier is somewhat obscured. Here’s the photo from this day.
We decided on our last day (before leaving town) to drive back out since the sky was clear. Look at the difference! You can see so many more peaks and a lot more of the glacier!
We actually hiked up the gorge to see the glacier “up close.” Well … as close as you could get. The drive was pretty challenging to begin with …check out this road!
Come to find out, just recently, this section of road washed out — about 900 feet of road. It is closed now for a few months I believe.
When we got up to the parking lot we hiked up about a mile in the gorge to see the glacier. All of it kind of sketchy … and when you get up to the glacier you’re like “Wow. That’s it? That dirty thing over there?” I kind of like the view from earlier. You can decided here …
As you can see … some places you shouldn’t stop!
Can you see the small group of people down below? They were stopped right under this sign. Good thing they had a tour guide! 
Looking back down the valley from the glacier … all of this was carved out by the ice.
Here’s a look at the face of the glacier … 
A really close up on the ice!
Here it is from a distance … kind of (un)awe-inspiring–until you realize how large it truly is. This particular glacier is 3 kilometers deep.
I don’t know … I like the view from far away where you see grass, mountains, and the glacier together. 
We enjoyed getting up close and seeing this glacier (a first for Deb!) and exploring the area. We only spent two nights here … that was enough. We left the final morning, had our sighting as mentioned above, and then drove by the Franz Josef Glacier on our way to Hokitika. We saw both of the glaciers and were looking forward to the next part of the adventure — riding some of the west coast wilderness trail! Stand by for that post.
Stumblingpiper
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