Speccy +

 Definitely a bucket list day. We left Greymouth this morning (not sorry) and began our drive to Queenstown. Before I start describing our day, I have to say that words and photos are really not sufficient to share the sense of gobsmacking awe that we have experienced all day.

Before we started the big drive, we had a couple of stops to make. First one was at the Franz Josef township where we went to see the Franz Josef glacier. Clare and I had never seen a glacier before so it was a huge experience for us. We decided against the helicopter flight over the glaciers and instead took to the walk to the viewing area. The viewing area is around 3km away from the end of the glacier but the view was still very impressive. You will see from some of the photos that there is a big wide river bed between us and the glacier. Had we visited 100 years ago, the glacier would have filled the river bed. Unfortunately, it has receded a lot and is still receding so if you want to see the Franz Josef glacier, you might want to visit sooner rather than later.

Next stop was the Fox Glacier. It is bigger than Franz Josef but it is further away from the viewing area so it seems less impressive. The great part of the Fox was the beautiful (but strenuous) walk through the rainforest to the viewing spot. FUN FACT: the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are the only glaciers in the world that are next to a temperate rainforest. It is wild how two such different natural features can exist next to each other.

After our glacier spotting, we hit the road in earnest and drove to Queenstown. The journey was a attraction all on its own. The west coast of the south island is sandwiched between the Tasman Sea and the Southern Alps so we found ourselves next to soaring mountain tops, sandy beaches, gushing rivers, gigantic lakes and rolling farm land all in the space of one journey.  Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea  were so astonishingly beautiful that we had to stop and take a moment to take it all in. As I said above, words and pictures cannot do it justice. The west coast has the best natural scenery that I have ever seen. I find it hard to believe that there is anywhere in the world that could top this.