Haast to Fox Glacier

Dune Lake

After a fitful night spent trying to smack the persistent mozzies (a change from sandflies) we had another busy day, setting off from Haast and driving to Ship Creek where we did a couple of walks - the Dune Lake Walk of around 30 minutes which was excellent with the native bush, podocarps, ferns, swampland and birds especially tomtits and fantails.
The other walk was the Kahikatea swamp forest walk of about 20 minutes, the boardwalk sitting right over the water in places giving good views of the swamp area as well as the numerous trees, especially Rimu and the Kahikatea (white pine) which is NZ's tallest tree and can live for 500-800 years.

Now where are we? - Up Ship Creek!

We stopped briefly for the panoramic views of the rugged coastline and rainforest at Knights Point before heading on to Monro's Beach for the 1.5 hour return walk along a good path to the beach through the luxuriant coastal forest - lots of bellbirds, waxeyes and tomtits as well as wood pigeons. Again the sandflies chased us from the beach not long after we arrived but it was yet another enjoyable walk.

A Paringa lakeside flower!

Peaceful Lake Paringa, where there is a nice DOC camp, was a good place was a good place to stop for a paddle and Len's brief afternoon nap before making a short visit to the Salmon Farm Cafe further up the road. The cafe serves lots of salmon dishes but unfortunately you can't buy fresh salmon there. We could see them swimming around and around in their little pools though, poor things!

Soon we had nice coastal views of Bruce Bay before turning inland again and arriving at Fox Glacier which we walked up to the viewpoint to see - a return walk of about an hour. Last time we were in this area we were short of time and only visited Franz Josef Glacier so this time have done Fox instead. Very busy with lots of people - good to see but such a shame that it is receding so rapidly. We had intended to do the Chalet Lookout Walk (1.5 hr return) as apparently you get better views but the road had a sign saying it wasn't suitable for campervans so we had to turn around.

The Fox Glacier

We have vodafone and internet connection again at last here in the Fox Glacier small township but apparently we will lose it again as soon as we leave the town so tonight we are staying at the Fox Glacier Campervan Park so we can catch up with things we need to do on our electronic devices before moving on. There is a morepork calling to us from the bus!