On the road by 08.15 and heading towards the West coast and Glacier Country. Initially looking a bit grey but as we got to the end of Lake Wanaka we started to climb into the rainforest on the edge of Mount Aspiring National Park and in true rain forest style it started to rain. The route followed the River Haast which was in full flow due to the rainfall and waterfalls were cascading into the river from the adjacent mountains. The cloud level was very low and most of the mountains were obscured but this made things look quite dramatic. We had numerous photo stops through the rainforest to capture the raging and spectacular waterfalls. The rain continued to fall as we came out of the rainforest and then River Haast broadened out into a flood plain and we crossed numerous single track bridges (more photos!) of smaller rivers flowing into the Haast. We continued through the town of Haast and followed the Tasman Sea coast north where the waves were crashing onto the beach and a huge amount of driftwood had been deposited on the beach. We continued northwards through the mountains - we kept going up and down the other side although we couldn't actually see the mountains through the clouds and eventually arrived at Fox the site of the Fox Glacier at 11.45. After a visit to the Information Centre we decided to go to the glacier which involved a fairly short ride up a mountain road and then an hours return walk to the glacier. It was still raining although quite lightly and we set off up the track towards the glacier, crossing streams fed by the rainfall via stepping stones which were flowing into the main torrential outflow from the glacier which was a milky grey colour. We were able to get within 200 metres of the glacier face however due to the low cloud and drizzle visibility was very limited and the glacier did not look very impressive. We hope to see it in a better light tomorrow.

After the exertion of the walk to the glacier, in the afternoon we went to the Glacier Hotpools In Franz Josef which we had pre booked through bookme.com and consisted of three large natural pools set in rainforest with canopies over the top, which in our case kept out the rain, or on other occasions the sun. The three pools were of different temperatures 36, 38 and 40 degrees - very relaxing.
Distance travelled 261 Km