The day starts out grey, but at least it’s not raining. We drive to Lake Matheson as there is meant to be a walk that gives you a great view of Fox Glacier over the lake, on arrival, we find it’s a 1.5-2hr walk, and we really don’t have time to fit that in, so we give the walk a miss. We still get some good photos
Then over to the Fox Glacier carpark to start the 5km walk. The first part is pretty easy, along the valley floor, but then there is a fairly steep section to the glacier lookout that has our heart rates going up. That combination of really cold air, but we’re sweating in our coats is interesting.
There are a few signs here that show where the glacier was in the years past, and it pretty amazing to see how much it has retreated over the last century.
A few helicopters are flying around, it would be nice to take a flight and land on the Glacier, but they’re damn expensive. Maybe some other time.
The glacier face is a good 500mts or so from the viewing area, the ice is covered in dirt. It’s not like it’s still not an impressive sight, it is. I guess it was just a little different from what I was expecting. The fact that these glaciers come all the way down to basically sea level is pretty amazing.
We walk back down the valley floor. Realising the glacier created all this is an eye opener.
On the road again, we have a quick stop at Knights Point lookout, then over the Haast River. The river, like many here as so wide and full of rocks, obviously in the spring melt they probably are raging. Again a super long, single lane bridge with three passing spots. Incredible.
A quick stop at the town of Haast and my first go at emptying the toilet cassette and filling up the water tanks, not as bad as I feared it might be.
Now out through the Haast Pass, there are a number of waterfalls and walks in this area. We take a look at Roaring Billy Falls. The kids have fun run running around on the rocks of the riverbed.
Tonight we’re at Pleasant Flat, a Department of Conservation (National Parks) campsite.
We take a walk by the river and while it’s really cold, it so relaxing and peaceful here and the scenery is just amazing.
After dinner we take a bit of a walk around with the torches, but any wildlife is making itself scarce.
