We arrived at the mentioned motel in Fox Glacier Township around late afternoon. Township is a not very appropriate definition, as it mainly consists of Motels, Hotels, Backpackers and providers for tours on the glaciers. But to be honest, there is not much more to do there anyway. We were welcomed by our British flatmates for the next couple of days, as we were accommodated in the staff house. Claire and Alex are on Working-Holiday in New Zealand and found work in the Motel why they were living in the staff house as well. Claire gave us the tip to drive to a lookout on Fox Glacier what we did for sure. After that we directly drove to the glacier valley and walked up to see it from a closer distance (200m).
Our first impression was „that’s really sad“. Fox- (and also Franz-Josef-) are famous for the fact that they are one of the only glaciers in the world which penetrate natural rain forest. This was true until around 10 years ago as today there is not much left of this penetration. Glacier and rainforest are separated by some kilometres. Actually, we wanted to go on a tour on one of the glaciers, but due to the instable glaciers this is only possible by booking a helicopter. Which makes it expensive, of course. The cheapest alternative is a 10 minute helicopter flight (that is to say, 10 minutes including snow landing and staying on the glacier) for flappy 99$. We found the first too stupid and second too expensive, why we decided to go on a glacier in Switzerland instead. Anyway, one can see the dimension of global warming. Nevertheless, it’s quite impressive to see a glacier from only 200m apart and not to wear particularly warm clothes.
The next day we started working. We had to work three hours a day for accommodation, meals were self-provided. The work was quite simple, however, and Mike and Heather the owner of the Motel were pretty relaxed. The very first day we got to paint the fence in fire red only interrupted by a 30 minute breakfast break. We drove to Franz-Josef-Glacier in the afternoon which was as sad as Fox before. Even though Franz-Josef is slightly more impressive than Fox, just because of its size. Both daily lose ice chunks of the size of a campervan, why you shouldn’t stand at all at their terminal.
The second day in the Motel we learned how to make beds properly, which was apparently quite funny and in the afternoon we walked around Lake Matheson, which is famous for its even and mirroring surface, which was really cool (see the pictures)! After sunset we went to a glowworm cave and indeed we saw a lot of them, so beautiful!
Our time in Fox-Glacier Township was over again and the next day we drove to the start of the copland track, which should become our first really highlight of New Zealand…