Franz Josef and Fox

What sounds like code names in bad spook-movies are the names of the two most famous glaciers of NZL. They are situated right next to each other in the center of the West Coast. We wanted to get as close up as possible and reasonable, but again the DOC (department of conservation) thwarted our plans: Fences were put up at about 500m away from the shear zone of the glacier.


Fox Glacier from as close as we could get. (Strictly speaking, it is not really illegal to cross the barrier. But I told you about the DOCs influence in NZL...)

Unfortunately just 2 days before we got there some wanton Aussie tourists climbed the safety fence and were crushed by falling ice. It has to be said at this point that one reason why these poor young men crossed the fence may be the ridiculously faraway placement of the fence. It is really frustrating that the only way of watching the glacier without offending the officials is from hundreds of meters away, or taking a rather expensive on-ice-tour which ranges at about 100NZD for half a day.


Furious...

But we swallowed our frustration and made the best of it by exploring the surroundings as intensively as we could. And we found some truly marvelous spots!


Mt. Cooks reflection in calm Lake Matheson


A hall of mirrors

In order to get good views of the Fox glacier, we decided to climb Mount Fox. We were walking more than 3 hours, leaving behind about 1000m of altitude, through dense jungle (!) to finally reach a plateau from where we could see the glacier (!). Unfortunately there were some clouds up in the sky, covering the promised spectacular view of nearby Mount Cook. So while I was still pondering on how to get down alive without dying from exhaustion, Stevie was already secretly working on a plan on how to watch Mount Cook from up close. But that´s another story.


The long and steep way up.


Cotton Eye Joe and Fox Glacier


Suddenly clouds appeared out of nowhere. We could virtually watch them form out of thin air right in front of us. This forced us to abandon the fantastic scenery and start our painful hike down.

Watch us getting down at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157614032350401/