The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
Leaving the glaciers behind, we headed back up into the mountains on a quest to reach the east side of the South Island.
Another narrow, ancient bridge.
The confluence of the Haast and Landsborough Rivers.
A raging torrent that the road snaked along for quite some distance.
An old bridge used to cross the maelstrom.
Over the pass and down the high alpine valleys of the east side.
A huge alpine lake.
The Fox Glacier trail was closed when we arrived on account of overnight washouts due to a big surge of water being released from the glacier.
This is one big glacier!
The car park was built by pushing some rock and gravel up to form an island in the outflow from the glacier.
The small orange dot is a worker trying to reestablish the trail.
This little parrot is a menace to cars. He eats rubber gaskets.
The band on his foot indicates that he is well known to the New Zealand authorities.
The Franz Joseph Glacier in the distance.
This glacier is HUGE!
Heading up the path to the glacier’s toe.
Water pouring off the high mountains.
A guy who sets out the trail everyday. Every time the water changes course, they have to rebuild the trial. Not too bad of a job.
That’s a big glacier.
Looking down toward the sea.
Kristen down toward the glacier for scale. We were still a few thousand feet away from the ice.
Yes, it’s dangerous here.
That didn’t stop us from getting right up to the rope.
We were both pretty soaked by the end of our hike.