Fox Glacier

So,  the rain died down over night and now the weather was fine.  As we sat and ate breakfast, Mount Tasmin peaked through the clouds at us whilst Mount Cook hid beneath it's heavenly duvet.

We decided to take a walk up to foot of the glacier, you walk up along the edges of the river that flows from the glacier.  In amongst it's debris fields,  when you see the size of the rocks the glacier has cracked open and thrown about it's easy to see how they have been responsible for the shape of so much of our planet.

On the way up I took the opportunity to shoot loads of abstract images of rocks and ice - always good to practice these things. 

We then returned to town and I checked to see if there were any available helicopter flights on to the glacier,  but apparently the cloud was too low and none were flying.  Which is a shame.

We went into a saloon for lunch,  it was very much a saloon - if you told me we were in the west of America I would have been completely convinced.  Whilst we were sitting there a camper van pulled up outside the saloon and backed up to far and crunched into the front of a parked 4x4.  Having got out to inspect the damage the driver then drove off.  Luckily I got the number,  so Maria wrote the owners a note with the reg details and what had happened and I stuck it under the windscreen to shouts of "good on you mate" from the regulars in the salon.  A while later a confused Japanese couple came back to the message and I explained what had happened to their hire car.  I think they were grateful!

After that incident we took a walk round Lake Matheson which has reflections of the mountains in it, on a still day.  We walked round the lake and about halfway round it suddenly got really hot,  the bush started steaming and the sweat was soon pouring off me.

Further down the road was a viewpoint where you could see all the mountains and the glacier.  I had to wonder why some idiots had left a load of beer bottles there,  till I realised that it was a monument to a recent air crash and clearly their mates had left them a drink - rather moving:

Then it was a drive over to frans-joseph,  for a look round, some shopping and to find somewhere where it was raining!  On the way back we picked up to Czech hitch-hikers - which added a certain element of fun to the journey as we have noticed on steep hills the mud-flaps of the car drag along the road.  With 2 people in the back it was almost constant dragging,  I expect when we give the car back the mud-flaps will be down to a bout an inch high.

Evening meal was a lovely snack at a place in town that even did something interesting for Maria.  Then I spent the evening capturing the sunset over the mountains.