New Zealand Day 6: The coolest day ever (pun intended)

After a very good night’s sleep due to the activities of the day before, our bus set off towards Fox Glacier. We made a stop at Lake Wanaka, where I got an okay reflecty picture (above). We drove lots, so of course I saw more sheep pastures (above). We made a short stop at Thunder Creek Falls (above), where we all re-filled our water bottles with crystal clear glacial water. There were lots of really cool rocks there (above).

We made it to Fox Glacier in the afternoon. Fox Glacier is one of the biggest glaciers in New Zealand (there are thousands), and is one of three glaciers in the world that are found right next to temperate rainforests. We hiked through the rainforest (above) on our way to the glacier under the supervision of our guide Jeremy (above). We got to what Jeremy referred to as “Kodak point” because of its great vantage point to take pictures of the glacier. So as you can see, the glacier is massive (above). It starts way up at the top of the mountain, where it’s cold enough to make snow. Then the ice moves down the valley at a rate of about one meter a day. However, since it’s too warm at the bottom to sustain a glacier, the bottom melts at about one meter a day, forming a glacial river (above). This makes for a net movement of nothing during most days. The ice is dirty because it is so warm at the bottom, so it picks up mud as it moves along. It was actually pretty cool that it was dirty because it made it easier to see the awesome shapes in the ice (above).

Finally we made it to the glacier itself. There you could really see how crazy it was to have such lush greenery go right up to the edge of this mass of ice (above). Before we were allowed to walk on the glacier, we were issued crampons to help us grip the ice (above). We walked onto the glacier via steps cut into the ice by Jeremy and the other guides. It was awesome to be surrounded by ice (me, above). You could really appreciate how huge the glacier was when you looked at it in relation to people on it (above). We saw a natural ice cave that had developed (me next to it, above). It was a great example to see how incredibly blue the ice is in some parts (above). We snapped a picture with some of our friends from the tour group (above) before we left the ice and hiked back through the rainforest. It was a pretty incredible thing to see.