Franz Josef & Fox Glaciers
Apparently we are now those people who get up early on vacay and go for a run. It's a balmy 2 degrees this early morning. We don our gloves and coats, say 'G'nay' to the horses we're staying with and head off towards the town. It's fresh but Courts is stripping off her gloves and jacket pretty quickly. She will sweat no matter the temperature. We run along the main road for a bit (a little sketchy but the snow capped mountains surrounding us are gorgeous) and then find the track amongst the trees. It's basically a rainforest and we're very impressed with Franz already. We head back to our cottage accommodation for a pancake brekky with the works - thanks, Jeff!
Franz Josef is famous for its glaciers so that's the plan for today. First we're off to, you guessed it, Franz Josef Glacier. The closest we can get to it from this particular lookout is 3,000 metres, due to the risk of getting swept away in the river (although it doesn't appear to be flowing today). We head to the lookout and are pretty saddened to see the glacier or rather, what's left of it. Over the past 100 years a huge amount of the glacier has melted away due to global warming. It's pretty confronting to see the before and now photos and how quickly the glacier has disappeared.
Our second stop for today is to see Fox Glacier. We get to the start of the track and immediately notice a drop in temperature. The track here is nice and wide, plenty of room for cyclists and walkers. We head off into the rainforest and are amazed that this is part of what NZ looks like. It's beautiful. We slowly meander our way up the track, a nice and easy one.
We're babbling away so much we almost miss our first glance of the big Fox. It's a small speck in the distance which blends in with the cloudy white sky.
We continue up the track until we make it to the proper look out and we're able to get a better look. Again, pretty disappointing to see there isn't a whole lot of glacier left.
We admire a nearby roaring stream amongst the rainforest and Jeff heads in for a closer look. All of the water we have seen so far has looked so clean and crystal clear. We've seen all there is to see so head back to the cottage for the night.
