Tuesday, February 5 - Glaciers

      After worrying about cloudy skies, this is the view we woke up to in our campground;

I'm glad we didn't move on down the road

      We had breakfast, put away tents, then drove closer to Franz Josef Glacier.

We hiked for about an hour to get close to the glacier

Lots of falls in the valley

Interesting rock carvings made by the flowing ice

The New Zealand glaciers are the only in the world that flow
into a rain forest

Crescent moon setting behind valley wall

     After exploring Herr Josef, we drove on to Fox Glacier.  Along the way we had some good views of Mount Cook, the highest mountain in NZ.

This region is called the Southern Alps with good reason.  That's Mount
Cook on the left.

The hike to Fox Glacier gains more altitude than Franz Josef.  Dan strides
to the top.

Here we could actually get above the glacier and
look down at it

There are many crevasses in the ice.  This one looks like it has a head
wedged in it.

Because of very high levels of snow fall and steep slopes,
New Zealand glaciers move faster than any others in the world and are very
dangerous to get too near to without professional guides.  Several people
have been killed by falling ice, rock falls, and disappearing into crevasses.
We were happy to obey the cardboard ranger.

       Below the glacier we crossed the river on an old swingbridge and got a close look at the heavy ice melt.

NZ loves its swingbridges, or cable bridges.  They
can be found all over the country.  They're fun to
walk on because they bounce, sway and undulate.

I wouldn't want to fall into that!

Diana and Kevin wave hello

       We drove on to our campground for the night, passing this very pleasantly situated farm;

Not a bad place to raise cattle