Wednesday 10^th December

Today dawned bright and sunny but soon clouded over, but happily not before Iain had snapped some photos of the surrounding mountains that had been in cloud when we arrived.

After breakfast we drove up the glacier access road and walked for an hour or so to get some good views of the Franz Josef Glacier although they won’t allow anyone nearer than 250m for safety reasons.

The whole valley with a braided glacial river running through it and waterfalls on the sheer mountain sides was well worth a visit. On our return the clouds were coming down again and as we drove away the rain started.

We decided to visit the Wildlife centre to see some Kiwis and let the weather settle. The exhibition was interesting and they have at present three two month old Kiwis that are kept in a large nocturnal house so that visitors can actually see them being active. There is a large on-going conservation programme where they monitor the Kiwis and actually incubate and hatch some of the eggs before returning them to the wild once they are older and large enough to hold their own against their main predator, the stoat. If left, very few Kiwi eggs actually reach adulthood.

The weather hadn’t improved much but we decided to take a chance and drive over to Fox Glacier (about 30 minutes on a windy mountain road). We drove through the township and then onto the Glacier view road which was a beautiful drive through jungle to a car park. We then did a short twenty minute walk through a beautiful tree fern forest to a lookout on the river where you could see the glacier. It was too cloudy to see much other than the terminal murrain wall.

By the time we reached the car it started to rain again so we drove up the Glacier access road to another car park and lookout but we couldn’t see much more. The rain was getting heavier so we decided to return home.

Tuesday 9^th December

Today we had cloud and rain almost all day. We left Wanaka around 10am and drove along Lake Hawea and then the northern part of Lake Wanaka before travelling over the Haast Pass to the west coast. 

All the mountains were hidden by cloud but we did manage to go and see the Fantail Falls and Thundering Creek Falls without getting wet. 

At least it means there are fewer photos to sort through today! We arrived at our B&B just after 3pm and have been upgraded to a lovely suite with a bedroom and sitting room as well as a bathroom. Bernie, one of the owners, is lovely and fed up beer, tea and biscuits while giving us lots of information on the area. She is taxing us to and from the restaurant in town (three minutes away by car) tonight which is very good of her.