NZ Day 16. Pancake rocks to Fox Glacier.

After our night in the camper we hit the road and found that the accommodations associated with the village continued beyond where we had turned around the night before, thinking we had reached the end. So we might have found a motel had we looked further! Anyhow, stopped at Pancake rocks and were impressed by the scenery, the sea crashing in and the layering of the rocks which give the location its name.

Collapsed cave at Pancake Rocks

Pancake rocks. The layering is  unusually uniform and laterally homogeneous

Another view

Randi at the Pancake Rocks

Then on towards the glaciers. A longish day’s drive. At one point we encountered two of the strangest ‘level crossings’ I have seen. The first was a bridge which could be used by cars or trains, controlled by gates and the second had the railway track passing straight through the middle of a roundabout, the whole arrangement being treated as a level-crossing for traffic control! Arrived at Franz Joseph and headed along the hike to the toe of the glacier. Met two other hikers Courtney from Dallas and chap* from Cambridge UK. He had been cycling his way around New Zealand for 2.5 months. We enjoyed chatting with them as we walked up to the glacier and took photos of each other! Then on to Fox Glacier where we were almost the last ones up the trail.

Level Crossing or Roudabout??

Franz Joseph Glacier toe

Another view

and Fox Glacier

And then to the Lake Matheson motel which we had booked into earlier by phone. It was disappointing. The Lonely Planet guide hat talked glowingly about the refurbishment of the interiors, but it was a cookie cutter, cheaply built set of rooms with no individuality. Although the write-up in the AA guide had said ‘with wifi’, this turned out to mean that there was wifi there that you could use to connect to a service that cost twice as much per MB as Vodaphone Pay-as-you-go 3G. Not impressed, and the bed was soft.