Our next major port of call on the South Island was the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. On the drive down there from Hokitika we stopped off at Lake Mahinapua to do a short walk through the forest to the lakeside, to a place called Swimmer's Beach. Swimmers Beach was actually only about 2 metres across, so tiny, but we stayed there for a few minutes to take in the view, and carried on. We had lunch at another lake, Lake Ianthe, a really pretty little lake with a sweet little boardwalk. New Zealand is full of these types of stopping points, around every corner it seems!

After a bite to eat, we drove through an old gold mining town called Ross, which featured its gold mining history quite prominently. You can still pan for gold here, but it seems like that's about all that you can do there. We eventually got to Franz Josef, a lovely town. The scenery was amazing, with the Alps looming in the background, and despite being quite a small town it had a bit of a buzz about it. We droped our stuff off at the youth hostel we were staying at, and went out to explore. Franz Josef is best known for its glacier, and the fact that the glacier is very close to sea level, so we did a 4km walk along a dried up riverbed to reach the terminal of the glacier. It was a popular walk with lots of other tourists there. It was an impressive sight to see the glacier so close to us, and from where we were stood we could see people walking on the glacier itself (on guided tours) and helicopters passing overhead for scenic flights.

The following day we drove a a short distance to do a walk to the Fox Glacier. It took about 2 hours altogether, but the views were, once again, worth it. We had to cross a large stream using stepping stones to reach it, but that was part of the fun. Luckily we didn't fall in the water. On the way home we did a few smaller walks near Franz Josef, stopping off at Peters Pool to see the reflections of the mountains in the water. We spent our last evening in the area relaxing in the Glacier Hot Pools, a less smelly version of the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua, but this time the hot spa pools are nestled in the rainforest. It was quite odd seeing glaciers and rainforest so close together, in a good way, and we really enjoyed this part of the South Island.