Day 10 - 6th Aug 2007

We had booked to fly up onto the Franz Joseph glacier this morning and the walk on the ice. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good and the morning flight had to be cancelled with a chance to try again in the afternoon.

So we drove through the small town then took the walk to the glacier face. Unfortunately the path was closed pretty far away but we went through the ropes and continued walking up the river bed to about 100m from the ice. To be honest, the ice wasn't that dramatic given the grey weather but the valley was still impressive with high mountains and long waterfalls.

We went back into town for a cafe lunch and try to get on the helicopter. Although the weather had improved it wasn't good enough so we drove about 20km to the Fox Glacier. This one is easier to get to and you can walk even closer to the face.

From there we headed down to Lake Mathieson which features in a lot of New Zealand marketing - a big lake that is very calm and has great reflections of the mountains, especially Mt Cook.

We then called in on the very stormy but exciting Gillespie Beach on the way back to the villa.

New Zealand 2007 pt 6