Fox Glacier to Greymouth 

The first thing on our list for Monday was to go down to Lake Matheson early in the morning, to take photos of Mount Cook together with its reflection in the lake. This is a well known photo that needs to be ticked off, so the rest of the world was there too. Fox Glacier is a small town along the main highway and, from comments made at the hotel, the town was full and for nights to come. 

We were staying on the road to the lake and had soon picked up a hitch hiker from Oxford, on her way to the same point. 

It's a reasonable walk from the car park to the lake, through a woods and as always, there were plenty of Chinese around.  Views along the way

When we got to to view point there was a lot of mist lying, so we thought that we were too late

After a number of attempts, we turned back, but soon realised that the mist was clearing, and returned to the viewing point Capturing the images of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman with their reflections. 

 

Then it was time for breakfast at the cafe by the lake and back to the hotel to pack, picking up the same hitch hiker for the return journey. 

We set off along the coast from the bottom left hand corner of the map to Greymouth. Much of the drive is along the plain, but some has mountains towering above us. 

Our next destination was Hotitika on the way to Greymouth where we would spend the night. Pat had read 'The Lumineires' by Eleanor Catton and wanted to see the Hotitika where it was set. It was clear that the town had benefited fron the Booker prize winning novel. The museum, where the author mad done much of her research had a room dedicated to the period. Most of the buildings of the 1860s have disappeared now. Gibson Quay, the port area where ships arrived after long voyages was treacherous with many ships being badly damaged or wrecked.  This was the treacherous entrance to the river - no ships arrive here now, of course. 

Few buildings remain from the 1860s, but one can get a sense of a town that sprung up to accommodate the gold rush. 

Our destination for the day was Greymouth, 40km from Hotitika and we were soon installed in our hotel room, having returned the car to Hertz. They were very pleased to see John so much earlier than expected, we had booked to return the car 4 hours later. 

We had the car for 11 days, travelling 1,100 km from Christchurch, on the eastern side of South Island, down as far as Lake Te Anau, across the mountains to Jackson Bay and then up to Greymouth.  

Once out of Christchurch, the roads were empty.  We saw wonderful scenery everywhere, along lakes, through mountains, through farm land and along the coast, stopping whenever we saw anything interesting,

The majority of bridges outside towns are single track with priority to the direction that had the better view of oncoming traffic.  Some bridges were sufficiently long that they had passing places on them.

More often that not the bridges cross over a number of small rivers, rather than a large one, with sand or stones that come down from the mountains at times of flood.  

The verges of the roads are often colourful with tiger lilies and dandelions the alliums that we saw everywhere on North Island only reappered as we approached Greymouth at the end of our trip up the coast.