Monday, September 22, 2014

New Zealand-Day 3

Waking up in Fox Glacier.  We enjoyed our accommodation, despite Quinn’s head going completely through the wall while the kids were jumping on the beds!  We all gathered outside to watch as Sudip’s helicopter took off for his glacier hike.

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The rest of us headed off for a bush track walk around Lake Matheson.

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Mom in her moose shirt (that we ‘lovingly’ teased her about throughout the trip)

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The green moss was so vibrant and lined a good part of our trail.

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Lake Matheson

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I was definitely in need of a massage by day 3 of this trip!  Lots of walking with Hallie on my back!

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   Then we went to a lookout point where we could see Fox Glacier off in the distance. 

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We met up with Sudip who had gotten us lunch to eat in the van as we made our way south through the Haast Pass (which we had to get through before the road closed for the night). It was a beautiful drive!

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We got held up for about 20 min. as they were clearing the road from a rockslide…a bit scary driving through these mountains! I took the opportunity to take some fun photos of the construction equipment while we waited.

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The sun was starting to set. but we made one stop before dark.

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Here we are at the Blue Pools Walk. A gravel path and boardwalk through the silver beech forest led us to a swing bridge above the Makarora River. From here you could see the mountains and the crystal clear pools that have been carved out of the rocks by centuries of erosion.

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The water was so clear that you could the rocks on the bottom, along with the salmon swimming around!

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A little further down the walk was another bridge with beautiful views of the Blue Pools.

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Heading back to the car…getting dark and the sand flies were killer!  Hallie (& all the kids) loved running and jumping on the swing bridges!

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We wished there were more daylight hours as we know the views were stunning along our drive.

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Quick stop about an hour before our destination for the night to grab pizzas to go!  We were happy to be headed to Queenstown and staying in a spacious house for 4 nights!!

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