What to Do??

Well you find yourself at the mighty Fox Glacier...... Now What??

Well first things first, for heaven sake give yourself some time - holidays are hard work, and you need to allow a little time to reflect. We are a good spot for that!! The reason most folk come to the Fox is the amazing lump of ice on our door step. It's 13ks long and you can walk on it , Fly over it , Ski on it or just have a wee look at it.

The most popular walk would be the

• Guided half-day - this would be 3 - 4 hour walk onto the ice - no need to be super fit, gives you a great experience of the Glacier.

• Full day walk - Well you will need to be a little fitter as this takes you further up the Glacier with a good chance of getting to the ice caves.

• Heli Hike - Got to be my favourite as the helicopter takes care of the hard part and leaves you to enjoy the Glacier

• There are several other trips run by Alpine guides with perhaps one of the best being a ice climbing course so I would suggest trying their web site for more details, www.foxguides.co.nz

Perhaps you fancy taking a nice relaxing scenic flight over the Glacier, climbing to 12.000ft admiring the top of Mt Cook looking over the Tasman Ocean , and seeing the magnificent rain forest. You could  then just open the door and jump out. Highly recommend this activity - Tandem Parachute jumps - only at Fox.

Of course we do have more sedate activities from little 20 minute bush walks, stunning walks in the native forest, to walks up to the terminal face of the Glacier.

Lake Matheson is perhaps the most photographed Lake in New Zealand. This is the stunning reflection lake that has both Mt Cook and Tasman in its reflective glory. This is a very comfortable hour long walk, best done early morning or evening.

Gillespies Beach - this remote black sand beach is well worth the 24k drive through Kahikatea and Rimu forests. The beach is a old Gold mining area and was settled before Fox Glacier although only 2 people live there now. You can explore the old mine works or walk the beach to the seal colony.

I will just give you a few web pages for the scenic flight companies as they have the space to show you how good they all are. The trips are worth it , but beware they are subject to the weather. I will just give you the two local operators but there are several others that can be found under the Glacier countrysite which is www.glaciercountry.co.nz As for the local operators try www.mountainhelicopters.co.nz or www.scenic-flights.co.nz

As you can imagine this is a Mountainous region so there are lots of opportunites for hunting, fishing, and of course climbing. if you check out some of these links you will be able to find most of the information you need. If you cannot find it just come anyway, as too much information just leads to confusion 

 Have fun .. stay happy
Dale