Today we drove down the west coast to see a couple of
glaciers. Our plan was to visit the
Franz Josef Glacier and the Fox Glacier.
The weather is not typical right now – a little wet and cool. We got to the base of the Franz Josef Glacier
and it started to pour and hail!! We
waited about half and hour and then the rain seemed to lighten so we made a run
for it – we came all this way to see a glacier and we were going to see a
glacier. It was a wet hike but it was
amazing – the pictures do not do it any justice – it was overwhelming and
beautiful.
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| The Franz Josef Glacier |
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| The wet Rennies at the Glacier |
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| A waterfall along the walk to the base of the glacier |
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| An amazing view at the base of the glacier |
We then headed to the Fox Glacier to check out another
glacier – but it was worse weather there – hail, rain and wind!!! So we figured
that one glacier was good – how different could this one be? Plus we did not
have any more dry clothing. So we
decided to head to Haast Beach where we would stay overnight until we crossed
the Haast Pass in the morning. The pass is 140 kilometres long through the
Southern Alps. The pass was closed a
couple of days ago so hopefully it will be open tomorrow and we can make our
way through the mountain range and get to Wanaka and Queenstown.
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| Haast Beach |
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| Kids on the beach |
So driving through the West Coast of New Zealand is interesting to say the least - lots of narrow roads, single lane bridges, and corkscrew turns.....but the landscape and views are worth it.
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a single lane bridge
(we have crossed about 50 so far) |
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Tom Tom - our GPS
showing a turn on the highway |
Kia Ora from the Rennies
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