The Fox Glacier (Part One)

After our stop at Punakaiki we headed south along the spectacular coast road on the way to the Fox glacier. We had seen a glacier in the Rockies where huge buses with nine feet balloon tyres took us onto the glacier. We were able to walk around and peer into the ultra violet blue of the ice thousands of years old, watch it melt and taste the cold, pure water.

Here the situation is very different. The glacier was advancing not so many years ago and it is possible to walk to the wall of ice at its end. To get higher onto the glacier entails a very long guided hike up the valley or a helicopter flight.


We had booked a flight over the glacier and up to the peak of Mount Cook because we were not sure we would have time to drive around the Southern Alps to see New Zealand’s tallest peak from the other side. When we arrived in the town of Fox, the weather had closed in and we could see the cloud base half way up the mountains. The weather forecast for the next day was poor so it seemed we were out of luck.

We drove off to find a motel for the night and were very pleasantly surprised to discover that another helicopter was still flying ant that the visibility was great above the clouds. After some negotiation, a thirty minute flight for the price of a ten minute one and nothing to pay until after the flight we were off.

We did not fly up the fox glacier but another valley that rose above the cloud to give us brilliant views of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman as well as the head of the Fox glacier and the whole of the Tasman glacier. Above the cloud the sun shone brightly on Mount Cook
Once we on the eastern side of Mount Cook the cloud disappeared completely and we had an amazing flight seeing more than we had hoped for half an hour before.
Someone seemed to be keeping an eye on us!