Gayle and I have been married for 29 years, and this year we decided to get away by ourselves for two nights. We chose to go to Fox Glacier, about a three hour drive south of here, because we haven’t spent much time there. I was able to find a motel room for a very economical price (looking now, I think we must have squeaked in at the end of the “off” season, because prices next month are a lot more!), and it was a really nice room. We enjoyed a lot of walking, soaking in the spectacular mountain scenery and glimpses of the glacier, even though we couldn’t get close to it. Best of all, we had two days together without distractions, which is rare. We were both quite ready to get home by last evening, though. No matter how nice it is to get away, it’s even better to get home–and I overslept this morning! This first picture shows the view from our motel room, and the second is a pair of Paradise Ducks we saw on the lawn.
Peak View is about a 10-minute drive from our motel. It’s simply a place in open farmland from which there is an amazing view of the mountains.
This is Fox Glacier, viewed from Peak View.
Next, we went to Lake Matheson and walked around it.
The large mountain on the left is Mount Tasman; the slightly taller one to the right is Mount Cook.
When Gayle stopped to admire these ferns, he was thinking of you, Mom.
Our next destination was the walk up the Fox River valley to view the glacier. Notice the white glacial water in the river?
We took a side track that looped back to the main track, which went over a moraine. It has been ice-free for over 400 years, so there is old-growth forest on a lot of it. The moss all over everything made it feel enchanted!
This was a stump or rock completely covered with these tiny ferns. They were about two inches in diameter. So vibrant!
This was the closest we were allowed to get to the glacier. In 2014 when we were there, there was a track on the other side of the river which let us walk all the way to the base of the glacier.
After a rest back at our room, we drove the half hour to Gillespie’s Beach, a historic gold-mining area. We had a spectacular view of the mountains from there, too!
On the beach, we found this hollow log, and Gayle couldn’t resist crawling inside!
After dinner, we took our dessert back to Peak View to watch the sunset reflected off the mountains. It wasn’t as spectacular as it had been the night before as we drove down there (light clouds had diffused the light, making everything glow), but was still beautiful.
More next week….
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