The hike on Fox Glacier was a really cool experience. Our helicopter was taking off at 10:30 and we were about to spend around 3 hours on the Glacier. It was the first time I was getting back in a helicopter since that time over the Niagara Falls in Canada.
Ok I admit that this video is not the best to show how cool it is to fly over a glacier in a helicopter, but in my defense, I was seated in the middle back seat. The flight was maybe 10 minutes long. The helicopter then drops us somewhere on the glacier and after that, the hike could begin.
I am not gonna lie, there is not much to do on a glacier. It’s just ice. A lot of ice. But it’s not as boring as it may sounds. Hiking on this vast sea of ice is actually a really nice feeling. It’s not cold, the temperature is perfect for a hike, you wear stud under your shoes or it would just be impossible to stand, the view is unreal and well, this is quite an usual experience!
Fun fact: There is overall 3144 glaciers in New-Zealand. Only 18 of them are on the North Island! Almost all of them, including Fox Glacier are on the South Island.
Glaciers are moving a lot, creating some wonders of ice architecture. For instance, this one is moving from 6 meters per day, which means that it’s perfectly possible that the day after I’ve visited it, this cavern wasn’t there anymore.
An other example of what nature can make.
After 3 hours walking around the glacier, we jumped back in the helicopter, which brought us back at the bottom of the glacier. We got some food there, had a little nap on the grass before getting on the road again to our next stop: Mt Arthur Pass.
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