NZ Day 6 - Gorges and Glaciers

With another big day planned I cajoled the snoozers into get up and going by just after 9, and our first stop was just down the road at some old tunnels which we bumbled through without nearly as many torches as we needed!

Then it was onto Hokitika Gorge - which I’d been looking forward to since I saw a photo of it some months ago.  It was a bit out of the way but completely worth the drive - it had (as you can see) unbelievably blue water.

With two sites visited by noon, we hit the road for a longer drive (2 hours) down to Franz Josef Glacier. The views as we drove were spectacular - snowcapped mountain ranges popped up behind the flat plains. The river water was so clear that I could see every pebble below every bridge we crossed.  

We happened across a delightful lake just in time for lunch.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the glacier (and the town) when we finally made it but it was pretty cool.  

The Glacier behind us - it's shrunk heaps in the last 10 years..

and again but now we are as close as we can get - 750metres away. 

The walk up to the glacier (or as close as we could get anyway) was quite long so the kids distracted themselves by building some cool cairns along the way..