October 16, 2009 - Greymouth to Fox Glacier

Today we got up and guess what? It was raining! We had about a three hour drive from Greymouth to Fox Glacier. A couple of times we saw tops of snow covered mountains, the rest of the time we saw green, rain, fog, cows, and sheep.

We arrived in Fox Glacier before lunch. Daniel and Jack signed up to go on a 4 hour guided hike of Fox Glacier. Katrina and I stayed behind. We played a couple of games of pool at the hotel and then we went back to the room. Katrina watched TV and played Runescape. I got caught up on computer stuff.

The whole time Daniel and Jack were gone, it rained, and I am talking soaking, solid rain. They had been provided with rain gear and boots for the hike, but they still came home looking like drenched rats. They had an awesome time, however. They said they had to climb over 700 steps cut into the glacier and that their guide was from Iceland. Not sure if Daniel has posted the videos yet, but they took some videos and photos during their adventure.

As a side note, the constant rain caused Daniel's really nice camera to stop working. Fortunately, another hiker had the same camera and had had the same problem in the past - so he told Daniel to take the camera apart when he got back to the room and put it in a nice dry spot. Well, we had electric radiators and Daniel was able to create a nice warm environment for his camera and it is back to perfect working order (just something to remember should you ever run into that kind of problem).

We did one load of laundry - and it went smoothly! That was a nice change!