We were due to drive from Te Anau to Wanaka yesterday and stay in Wanaka last night, driving on to Franz Joseph this morning. It was a lovely drive through the alps to Wanaka and the town itself (on yet another huge lake)
looked good, but by the time we’d got there we decided to head straight on to Franz Joseph as it was a good driving day and we hadn’t particularly planned to do anything in Wanaka anyway.
Fox and Franz Joseph are two small villages built up around the glaciers of the same namea. We were booked to stay at Franz Joseph although we’d booked the heli-hike at Fox Glacier – a helicopter flight to and from the glacier with a two hour walk on it. When we awoke this morning we heard helicopters taking off around Franz Joseph, but looking up to the alps (and the glaciers are somewhere up there) the weather looked pretty grim. We arrived at Fox (a 20 minute drive from FJ) to check in for our 12 midday flight and were told it was looking good.
But by the time we’d booted up (as in footwear, not computers) the mists and cloud had moved in. No go folks, they said. We had booked a back-up in case of bad weather, to do the half-day glacier hike. But all this had been done on the internet, and so when we arrived and read all the info, we realised that the half-day walk incurred a steep climb up the ice, including a 100-metre path up the glacier with only a handrail and a sheer drop each side. ‘If you have a fear of heights, consult the guide,’ it said. We both felt that this was not an option for us and so said we’d try again for the 3 o’clock heli-hike (they only put this on as an extra if the first two of the day have been cancelled as they had been). That too was cancelled. So yes, a big disappointment (which I know sounds churlish when we’ve done so many other ‘firsts’ on this trip) but it will add to the good reasons we already have for a return visit to NZ.
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