Glaciers - Franz Josef and Fox — Our Next Big Thing

28 - 31 January 2023

Julie and Anthony on the Shackleton Glacier

Glacier Country helicopter tours was more than happy to fit us into their after noon trip to the glaciers. We had just enough time to get lunch at the Snakebite café in Franz Josef and went next door to catch our flight. We flew past Mount Tasman, Mount Cook and many of New Zealand’s over 2500 glaciers, including Franz Josef, Fox and Tasman. The helicopter landed at the top of Shackleton Glacier and one we don’t remember the name of. We got a chance to play in the snow. We even met a very social hanger cat (sadly, not pictured), who let us pet her (Anthony was her favorite) (totally not, Julie was).

View of the town of Franz Josef from the air.

Tasman Glacier - you can see the icebergs calved into the lake at the bottom of the glacier.

Mount Cook on the left, Mount Tasman is the sharp peak on the right

The helicopter flight provided terrific views of the Southern alps, including Mouth Cook and Mount Tasman.

We had some time to take pictures and play in the snow on top of the Glaciers.

Blue Lake - glacier fed lake after the sediment has settled to the bottom.

Waiho River bridge, outside of Fox Glacier

That evening, we walked to the Waiho River to watch the sunset.

Lots of folks told us we should hike the Okarita trail. We thought it was a loop trail that had one leg on the beach and then the other in the hills. We were wrong, they are actually two different trails. The beach leg is only passable 2 hours or so on either side of low tide. We started with the hill leg (thinking there would be a branch to the beach, wrong) and by the time we got to the end (the beach), we had missed our window. LOTS OF HILLS. Julie was so not happy to have to do the hill trail back, but it was not as hard going back as it was going out. Julie swears Anthony is trying to kill her.

The views at the end of the hill walk were worth it.

Julie realizing we are going back the way we came.

Julie cooling her tootsies in the Tasman Sea after our 7 mile hike.

The next day, we hiked to the Fox Glacier view point. It was a relatively easy 4.1 miles along a road, with a detour along the moraine trail, through the rainforest.

Julie and Anthony at Thunder Creek Falls

The Haast Pass from Fox Glacier to Queenstown goes through the Mount Aspiring National park. We stopped at Roaring Billy, Thunder Creek and Fantail falls on our way.