Fox Glacier to Abel Tasman

Whilst driving to Fox Glacier we saw a strange bird on the roadside, it turned out to be a Fjordland Penguin. We were about 300ft above sea level at the time. Elephant seals also have there pups in the area but we couldn't get down to them.

Arriving at Fox Glacier the weather was looking a little dodgy, so we opted to stay at a Backpackers called Ivory Towers. This was a really nice little place - very homely & cosy, and we even had a TV in our room. It turned out to be a good decision as, the following morning, it was raining copiously.

Nevertheless, we decided to make the trip to the glacier anyway, and we were glad we did. The rain eased and we managed to walk right up to the glacier, paddling across a couple of icy streams to get there. We also stopped at Franz Josef Glacier, but only took a short walk to a viewpoint. This was when we realised we'd left a load of stuff in the fridge back at Fox, so had to drive all the way back!

We finally made it to Greymouth and the next day spent the morning at Shantytown, where we tried our hands at goldpanning again. Helen found the flakes which were "planted" in her sand, but we had no luck in the wild.