Although only 23km apart from one another, the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are about an hours drive, thanks to the road between them! However, it is also one of the most scenic drives (Milford aside!) we've done. And to top off the scenery we were graced with a sight that neither of us had witnessed before - a double rainbow. What was more impressive is that at certain points along the road you could actually see both ends of it. Whilst we tried to capture it on camera, some things we're quickly finding out, just don't convey. We arrived safely and found ourselves at the Rainforest Retreat Campsite - where you spend the night sleeping under the (very) dark canopy of the rainforest.
Having already burned up the visa with the heli-hike in Fox, we settled with the walks to the various viewpoints at the bottom of the glacier. As it turned out these were also quite challenging as you had to walk along what is basically a dried glacial river bed. This is strictly not allowed as supposedly the river can rise at any point and sweep you away - but we could see loads of people doing it, so headed on down! The biggest downside to walking along a river bed is that there is no path or track, so you are literally walking up and over rocks, the whole way. And as this is a glacial riverbed the rocks are pretty random in size and shape! After about an hour's mountaineering (!) we reached the terminal face of the glacier. Here you truly get a perspective of the depth of the ice, and this is just the bottom of it! There are also good viewpoints into the caves here too, so many a kodak moment was had by all. Although surrounded by several other law breakers, there is a strange sense of potential danger when standing at the foot of a gigantic wall of ice, so we began the hike back!