Bit of a relaxing start to the day with a nice bacon sandwich and then on our way. With the additional mileage clocked up yesterday we managed to still make good time and arrived at Fox Glacier. The view of the valley was spectacular and there was a strange looking bird called a Kea when we pulled up, which looks basically like an oversize parrot on steroids. Certainly wouldn’t like it’s beak coming anywhere near us.

Back in 1935, which doesn’t seem that long ago in the big scheme of things, the glacier was a way down the road, at least a few hundred yards, but now has retreated. Lunch in the van and then an hours walk down to the glacier front. You aren’t able to get that close as its too dangerous but still amazing and the size of the overall place with the cliffs on either side just can’t be put into words. It’s just bloody big and a river flows out of the base of the glacier front.

Ideally we were looking to do a flight over the glacier as well but the weather turned on us and it just wasn’t going to happen so we took the opportunity to get ahead of the game for tomorrows big drive. Ended up in a little old gold mining town on a very basic site at the side of a pub. Electric hookup available and we’ve now decided this is pretty essential due to the cold weather so that’s good enough for us. Writing this now in the pub about to have a big old steak and chips with a beer in hand. Hopefully after the additional drive today, tomorrow will be a lot better than originally planned

Tony

How good was that steak! The steak over here is amazing, obviously the reason we don’t get any in the UK. There’s more cattle over here than sheep as far as we’ve seen so far so it can only be they eat it all.