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Saturday 17 October: Franz Josef Glacier
It rained all night!
Went to McDonalds for a coffee for breakfast. Then we set off to find another LOTR site, the Pillars of the Kings , which was easily recognisable in a beautiful little gorge. We were joined there by a tour group of 5 landrovers full of people searching the same thing. At least we knew we had hit the right spot!
Then we went to find another LOTR reference, the Fords of Bruinen.
Nearby Sue found an ancient Chinese gold-mining settlement to explore:
Then we set off up the Crown Range Road towards the Cardrona pass - very atmospheric in the rain and the mist.
We stopped at Wanaka to do the obligatory Iron Mountain walk, stopping half-way up for a short rest:
Then we headed off again to find some glaciers. We stopped first at Fox Glacier but couldn't get near it. The path was closed to the public, supposedly too dangerous. So we then went on to Franz Josef Glacier which we did manage to get close to after a 40 minute walk.
Here are 3 waterfalls we passed as we walked up the valley towards the glacier:
And here is David with the glacier in the V in the hills in the backround:
A couple of closer images of the glacier:
This is the valley we walked up to get to the glacier. Not very long ago this was all underneath the glacier:
Golden Nugget: