Franz Joseph glacier...

Wednesday, Mar 1, 2017

FJ glacier from start of hike

FJ end of trail

Weather wise, it continues to be fabulous. We have a hike this morning to the end of Franz Joseph glacier and I have my 9000 steps in by 11am. The views are incredible, amazing - I keep expecting this to become blasé, after all, everywhere you look, it's awesome, every view could be a calendar photo!

We head back to the town and have a brief look around and lunch on our own - it seems a typical little alpine tourist town with every second building either a tourist souvenir shop, a restaurant or a tourist adventure/tour venue.Helicopter rides over the glacier are the big thing - it was offered as an extra but we opted for the morning hike which is included in our mostly-everything-in tour price.

A brief stopover and a bit of a relax until everyone else gathers at the hotel and we are back in the vans on the way to a brief afternoon hike of 4.3km around the Lake Matheson Loop and the on to our next home for two nights, the Lake Moeraki Wilderness Lodge. The traffic was a bit hectic, very windy (that's wind-ie, like lots of curves, not weather related) road and on one bridge we are stopped for about 20 minutes while crews work on the one way bridge and nobody crosses. We are crossing over the mountains, to end up on the west side, the Tasman Sea-side of The South Island.

We miss the lecture on something to do with eels because we're late getting there but nobody seems to really mind. Dinner is a choice of mushroom soup or quinoa smoked salmon salad, leg of lamb or turbot and lemon tart or something chocolate - it's all good! Into bed because the next morning starts even earlier than normal because we have to get going to beat the tide.
Fitbit, 14 km; MA, 12.5 km; Backroads, 5 miles.