The West Coast

Fortified (though I say so myself) by some excellent bacon and scrambled eggs, we left the sand flies and Haast behind to head up the west coast to the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers. The road was borded on either side by high walls of ferns, tree ferns and shrubs and trees of all heights, so that it was impossible to see the surrounding countryside. The weather had turned somewhat dull, but it did not spoil the striking nature of the landscape. We had a brief stop on the coast at Knights Point and then at Lake Paringa.
The driving was not too difficult as the roads tended to be reasonably straight and quiet, although from time to time we had to stop for road works and this tends to mean single file traffic or even a complete stop while a part of the road is resurfaced – then on you go.
We arrived at Fox Glacier (the town) and had a short coffee/tomato stop before we headed for a walk up to the glacier. The walk takes you along a dry river bed and gradually up via stepping stones over streams coming down from the mountains and past some very scary looking rock falls.
The glacier is (I think) somewhat underwhelming, particularly because it looks a bit grubby, but it was interesting to see that large pieces of ice still in the river below. We presumed these had broken off the glacier in the last few days and it justified all the danger warnings.
There were quite a number of other tourists undertaking the same walk, including some lady who had a hat and jumper in a bright mauve and managed to drop both of them at different times without noticing.
We then headed on to Franz Joseph glacier, only about 14 miles away. Franz Joseph town is considerable bigger and lively than Fox Glacier town and we checked into our excellent Top 10 campervan site and had the usual cup of tea before walking up to a viewing point for the Franz Joseph glacier through a pleasant hilly glade.

At both Fox and Franz Joseph there were plenty of scenic flight opportunities, but we decided that the low cloud would not make for a great trip and decided to stay on the ground on this occasion.
We selected a Lonely Plant recommendation for dinner (I had been given the night off as had the butler). Alice May Restaurant and we ate well (perhaps too well) on a calamari, clam and muscle dish (himself to start), Blue Cod in beer batter with chips (both for main) and we shared a chocolate and orange pudding.