We did, and stopped off in Fox Glacier for a guided full day walk in the safe hands of Fox Alpine Guides. Or perhaps not so safe if your guide has a stinking hangover... seems to be a bit of a common habit amongst Kiwis, that.
So we rock up at 09.00 and immediately bump into Shell and Pete, who we had previously briefly met in Blenheim. Now we have English pals to do the walk with - excellent! Otherwise we would have had to hang around with Germans, Americans, and - even worse - some Dutch guys ;-)
I don't know what you think a glacier looks like, but you'd think it would be kinda like ice and snow and stuff, right? These things are dirty! As they treacle down the valley they pull rocks off the walls then they fall into crevasses and get crushed into dust and mud and glacier flour, so you end up with crazy marbling and big grey bits and chunks of rock all over it. Kinda cool to see.
Nicely weary at the end of the day we had a celebratory beer in the pub in town then cooked up a huge spaghetti putanesca for supper. Then bed to sleep the sleep of the righteous.
BTW, we had a hard time choosing between Fox and the other local glacier, Franz Josef. All the tourist information centres seem to push people towards Franz Josef, and it's by far the more commercial of the two, with a limit of 1000 visitors a day, while Fox only has 400. Also, trips onto Fox are cheaper, and the glacier is larger. You do the math.
Ben
2 comments:
Nice - been following your blog. As a kiwi, I haven't been to the glaciers yet - it is good to know which one to head for when I make it over that way. Drop me a line if you are in Dunedin and eager to try some of the local drop ;)
Thanks Mel,
Glad we could help - they're deffo worth a visit.
We would love to try the local tipple in Dunedin - we should be there in about a week and a half. Send us your email address and we'll get in touch.
Debs and Ben
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