TA Day 25 - Harihari to Fox Glacier

 61.5 miles, 4209’ climbing

Lodging: Cabin at Fox Glacier Top 10 Holiday Park

No rain!

The air was crisp as we pedaled out of Harihari. There were some low clouds, but it promised to be a sunny day. We had a quick 20ish miles through forested hills to reach the town of Whataroa where we stopped for a coffee.

Shortly after leaving Whataroa, we started getting glimpses of snow capped mountains, the first big mountains we’ve seen in New Zealand although hills are our daily friends. We had lunch in the town of Franz Josef, home of the Franz Josef glacier, which had a distinct look of a national park where a lot of people go on vacation. There were a lot of cafes and hotels, advertised tours, and a lot of people going past in motorhomes and camper vans. Also there were lots of helicopter tours passing overhead.

From Franz Josef we had a trio of climbs through the forest to reach the community of Fox Glacier. We checked into our cute cabin at the holiday park, dropped our bags, then pedaled light bikes up to the Fox Glacier lookout point. The bikes were wonderfully light with the bags off. There were a number of people hiking up the forest trail to the lookout, and helicopters came overhead every few minutes.

After admiring the view and taking our checkpoint pictures, we rolled down to town for an early supper, then a soak in the hot tub at the holiday park. There are signs in town about not feeding the Keas, a native parrot known for its destructive tendencies, but we didn’t spot any.