After my visit to Abel Tasman national park I spent one night in Nelson before taking the bus to Fox Glacier. Normally, this will take you about 6 hours, but with all the stops in between it was an 8 hour drive. We crossed some stunning coastal scenery’s, which made the 2 extra hours totally worth it. At one point we had a lunchbreak at the pancake rocks which were pretty nice to see.
When we almost arrived at Fox Glacier it was pouring. Not much later, when I checked in the hostel, I received an alerting message that we were not able to leave town because of heavy rainfall. When looking at the river the next day, it was clearly visible that it had been raining quite a lot.
Luckily, the next day it stopped raining and the sun was out again. The hostel had some mountain bikes which you could take and I decided to drive a bit into the forest to get a view of the glacier. Because of the rain it was pretty adventurous. The mud made it slippery and the trees and plants were humid. The fog on top of the river also created a very special effect.
Later that day, after a nice lunchbreak, I took a bike to Lake Matheson. There was a nice path around the lake through the forest. The water looked very inviting and I couldn’t resist to jump in. After the swim I enjoyed the view on the glacier and Mount Cook. A nice ending of an exhausting day.
The next day I woke up at 5 to climb mount Fox. Which was reachable by bike from the hostel. This was a very though hike. Because of the rainfall the last couple of days it was very slippery and there was no real path. The first part it really was hard to find the right route through a pretty dense forest. After an hour of 2 I passed the tree line and from here it was way easier to stay on the path and find the summit.
In total it took about 5 hours to climb to an altitude of 1345 meters. Before descending I enjoyed the close view on Mount Cook and the glacier. I even took a nap which felt really good. After coming returning back to the hostel it was time for a well deserved lunch.
In the evening I took a bike again and decided to drive to another viewpoint a bit further then Lake Matheson. It was very clear and it was nice to end my time in Fox Glacier here. The next day it was time to take the bus to Queenstown where I stayed for 4 nights.
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