Franz Josef Glacier

Today we drove from Wanaka to the town of Franz Josef. The drive takes about 3 hours and 45 minutes, but it took us over 6 hours because of the multiple stops we made to take photos and enjoy the scenery. This could easily be one of the most beautiful routes in the world. You travel around lakes, following a river and surrounded by green mountains, many of them with several tall waterfalls.







And many, many sheep grazing in the field, with a few cows to keep them company.

Lots of one-way bridges and picturesque scenery. Franz Josef  is a small town with a few restaurants and shops, mostly catering to the visitors. They have a great visitor center with all kinds of information about the area and the two main attractions: Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier.



We drove to the Glacier. It is a 45 minute hike from the parking lot to the foot of the Glacier. We got lucky with the weather and were able to walk to the closest point allowed, which is 250 meters from the Glacier. Depending on the weather, they may close off the hike 500 to 2000 meters from the Glacier. It is simply a spectacular formation of ice. We got a good idea of the magnitude of the Glacier when we saw a helicopter hovering over the Glacier and it looked like a small dot on the ice mountain. The hike to the Glacier was very nice too, along a wide river with colorful stones and a few gorgeous waterfalls.

Food: We had dinner at Alice Mae. Food was great and not very expensive. Staff were very friendly, of course.

Lodging: We stayed at the Oasis motel. We booked this place because we could not find available rooms in town. It is an inexpensive motel, but we were so pleasantly surprised with the high quality of the rooms. We had a modern room, good breakfast with a gorgeous view of a farm field surrounded by hills and occupied with sheep. An important note: we forgot our power converter and iPhone charger in the room and someone from the lodge took the time to locate us via email and make arrangements to get these items back to us by mail. That's great service!!