What another fantastic day, the weather forecast said there was a 50% chance of rain but luckily it didn’t materialise so we set off for the Glacier next door which is Fox Glacier. Looking at the map it looked like there was a car park either side of the road and the only difference was if you crossed over the historic bridge or not to start the walk. We decided to park on the opposite side of the river and walk across the bridge. It turns out that the map isn’t very to scale and it was a 20 minute walk to the river the a 30 minute walk to the base of the Glacier, having said that it was a lovely walk, the amazing thing about this part of New Zealand is that the Glacier virtually reaches the rain forest so most of the walk was through thick trees then we came out at the river. This is another swing bridge but luckily this one has boards across the bottom so Chris was fine getting across it. The bridge was built in the late 1800’s and was the final part of the walk to view the Glacier, unfortunately today the Glacier is a few more kilometres up the road! We walked round to the base of the Glacier then very much like yesterday a baron Glacier floor with lots of waterfalls on route. The walk took a couple of hours and quite unnecessarily the last part was up a very steep slope, but we were able to get within 450 metres of the Glacier which is quite impressive. By the time we walked back to the car it was lunch time so we sat having our picnic lunch then set off for Gillespies beach which is another strange feature of this area in that the rain forest actually goes down to the sea. Gold was discovered in 1865 and mining began. In 1891 a gold dredging company spent £5,000 shipping a suction dredge to the beach with the promise of gold and wealth but unfortunately this didn’t turn out to be the case as the suction pump wasn’t able to cope with the stones and timber buried in the black sand. We walked down to the beach but it was really windy and cold so we didn’t stay long. Our final stop of the day was the reflective lake which gives you fantastic views of the mountains reflected into the lake, or rather it would if it was less windy and not so cloudy. We couldn’t actually see the mountain at all let alone being reflected into the lake so we walked some way round then decided to head back so that we can pack as we are moving on again tomorrow.
