Photos of Plants From Near And Far: Fox Glacier

Well today was a travel day it took 7.5 hours to travel North West I am now in the Haast area Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier is a town consisting of a café, general store, hotel (yikes) gas station. I arrived late in the day so there was little or no time to explore before dark so I will share with you what I saw along the way from Queenstown. How the glaciers cut through New Zealand left many topographical extremes and Queenstown and a few other communities in the Otago region have benefited the most from those extremes. I am surprised that Alex’s dad does’t have a home in Queenstown the town itself attracts the rich and famous and borders the merino wool region. This area has a small land base because of the alps but there are a few small surrounding communities one of which Wanaka I have already told you about. Traveling north you enter the Kawarau gorge with a few little villages that are left over gold mining towns long abandoned and rediscovered but each village had only a few houses with no services and a long dangerous drive to gas, food, ect. One small village of about five homes is the home of a snow field where the different car makers test their new cars under such secrecy that when the cars leave the snow field they are entirely covered with tarps with only a small port hole for the driver to see through. Following the Kawarau River we came to Cromwell which is the region where the best fruit is grown in NZ. Now I have some shockingly tragic news to report so I hope you are all sitting down. Over the last year or two the international apple market has bottomed out so badly that this region removed all of there apple tree’s and replaced them with grapes….ahhhhhhhh The only good news is that this region produces some of the best wine I have ever tasted. One of the vineyards produces a pinot that is out of this world. The vineyards name is Peregrine and the building at their vineyard was designed to look like the wing of the peregrine falcon it was so beautiful. We then traveled up to the Gates of Haast ..in creditable views, waterfalls pouring of the alps and rivers running with fast water, this is the land where “Lord of the Rings” was shot. Climbing down the alps into the West Coast referred to as the “Wet” Coast this land sandwiched between the alps and the Tasman sea is made up of beautiful rain forest. The Tasman Sea has rain forest right up to the black sand beach. Remember how I told you everything in NZ is opposite than it is in the states I am happy to report that after traveling north it is much warmer. Well it is time for me to go to dinner eggs & hash with fig pudding for dessert and afterwards I walk down the road and enter into the rain forest BY MYSELF with a flashlight to see glow worms can you believe how brave I am to do this alone. Tomorrow morning there are many trekes in the area but the big one is to Fox Glacier that has been very active over the last number of months. Love and Miss you all.

It might be difficult to tell in the photos but it is pouring rain. I have an golf umbrella in one hand and a very wet unhappy camera in the other. No flash when I want it then of course flashes when I don't want it.

Moss, Moss, everywhere Moss

A tree never completely dies in the rain forest it just becomes a valuable host to new plant life.

Glowworms are common throughout New Zealand and are found in the deep bush or tunnels where the air is still, but sadly have no photos of these very cool glowing tubes to show you...maybe next time. Glowworms are the larvae of small flies, called Fungus Flies, and they live by catching night flying insects. The glowworm lives in a hollow tube, and from this is suspended many silk threads carrying sticky droplets. Just after dusk the glowworm glows brightly and insects attracted to the light fly into the sticky threads and are caught. The glowworm hauls up the thread holding the insect and either eats the insect immediately or stores it to eat later.

Fox Glacier is visually stunning and unique as it is slowly making its way from a snowfield below the Douglas and Glacier Peaks. To hike on the glacier you must first hike up through the rain forest the trail is narrow, extremely steep, and wet. There are parts of the trail where you need to hold on hand over hand then distend a sheer cliff on an aluminum ladder. By the time you reach the area(1 1/2 hours) where you can put on your crampons and climb on the glacier you have worked up a swet from hiking through the rain forest over dressed so now it is time to get cold.

Fox Glacier carries tons of rock and soil along with it.

One way of describing what a glacier is, might be to describe a bowl that constantly is filling with snow and over thousands of years the pressure from the weight of the snow form giant blocks of ice that move slowly and constantly to there doom but are always renewed at the source.

You don't want to slip into a crevasse as there is little or no hope of rescue. Note how the slowly moving glacier is cutting through the mountain

The ice is blue from absence of oxygen

Although in the higher altitudes it is snowing non stop down at this elevation it is endless rain making the trek on the glacier extremely slippery.

New paths need to be cut through the glacier every day. This is done by a crew of young men and very long pick axes that they were swinging up over their heads an then swing down chipping away at the ever changing ice.