The Glaciers

Our two night stopover at Greymouth ended today, so we were headed for the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, around a 2 hour drive along the coast. You couldn’t tell we were next to the sea as the fog had drawn in and was similar to driving in the clouds in Canada, very little visibility indeed. I’d overheard on the tv last night (English couple watching the tv inordinately loudly while eating dinner, annoying) that there’s actually a weather warning ongoing for the West coast (where we are) at the moment, which is due to end on Monday. So it’s wet, very wet, and the views are completely obscured by a dense fog. 

We were hopeful it would have cleared slightly by the time we got to the Franz Josef glacier, just as it seemed to clear yesterday, however it didn’t. At all. So we set off, and found the short hike to the edge of the glacier was made even shorter due to flooding on the track, so we were only allowed a short way. I got a couple of atmospheric photos, we both got very wet and didn’t see the glacier at all. We’d passed the Alex Knob trail, a 17.2km hike with panoramic views over the glacier which we’d planned for tomorrow, and weren’t persuaded to change those plans with the current weather situation so carried on over to the Fox glacier, a half hour jaunt (drive) away, knowing that if the weather was the same we just wouldn’t end up doing it tomorrow at all. Which is a shame however there’s literally no visibility so wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway and a soaking wet 8 hour hike doesn’t seem too appealing. 

We arrived at Lake Matheson, a stop off just before the Fox glacier, in much the same conditions as before, however we braved the rain to go for at lease a very short walk. At Lake Matheson you can get stunning views of the mountains reflected in the perfectly still water above the green layer of trees running around its circumference. The photos really are stunning. Safe to say ours are slightly different. A grey lake, with grey trees, in front of a grey sky, in the rain could safely describe our experience. After lunch in the van, whose new name is Iorek (said yor-ik, kind of Russian-esque), after an ‘armoured bear’ in the Philip Pullman novel the Northern Lights which we’ve been listening to on the drive (we’re cool). It also seems to suit his old, workmanlike nature, and more catchy than the polar express. 

When we got to the Fox glacier we knew it wasn’t our day. You literally couldn’t get anywhere near it as even the access roads to the hikes were closed. So we gave up and got to the campsite at about 3pm where I currently sit. Ironically as soon as we’ve got in a nice warm lounge it’s stopped raining. It looks like we’re giving up on the glaciers and just moving straight on to Queenstown tomorrow as it’s meant to be pretty much the same weather as today, and don’t really want to waste a day on random activities we aren’t particularly excited about. However I’m sure if the weather suddenly returns to glorious sunshine (unlikely) we will reconsider.