One of the views from the carpark.
This is called "Peter's Pool". The information sign said is was part of the glacier in the 1800's and an ice burg broke off and melted here making the small pool.
David napping every chance he gets!
Amazing colors in the moss.
These colorful mushrooms grow everywhere.
Photo bomber!
Franz Josef Glacier
Colorful rocks
After 2 1/2 hours of hiking; time for coffee & berry muffin!
Back in Fox Glacier at the edge of town. All the fences are covered in moss.
This area is a memorial for 8 people who died in a plane crash in 2010
going up to view the glacier.
We went out on Friday night to look for glow worms in the forest. You only have to go a few feet into the forest, turn off your flashlights and the forest looks like a sky full of stars. Pretty amazing! We picked up one of the worms to see what they looked like. They are actually a larvae of a type of fly. Their tails glow to attract bugs.
We weren't able to take a photo, but got this one off the internet.
Believe it or not we are actually working a little bit everyday. David trimmed the hedges and then he and Mike took the cuttings to "the tip" (the dump.)
David putting in a new curtain rod.
Stripping the floors of old wax.
Repaired a broken door jam, now sanding to re-varnish.
One of Linda's favorite jobs is ironing pillow cases. She also makes 12-20 beds a day.
This is a view from our room on Saturday. The clouds have moved in. There is 100% chance of rain for the next few days.
Our hosts, Mike and Heather invited us out for dinner on Saturday night. First night we have eaten "out" since we've been on this trip. Going to the "Cook Saddle Saloon".
Lamb Shanks - great food and company!
Our host - Mike and Heather
The rain has come in so we'll have to take a sight-seeing break.
Short video of the rain. It rained like this all day on Sunday and most of Monday.
Sunday afternoon we drove just to the edge of town to see what the river looked like. In 2 days, Fox Glacier received over 13 inches of rain. The access road to the glacier washed out and is now closed until they can make repairs.
With all the rain, parts of the glacier breaks off and floats down the river.
Deer farm
We saw this Elk out in a field.
Our host set up for us to visit a local dairy farm here in Fox Glacier. On Tuesday morning we got to the farm at 5:30 a.m. to watch their milking process. They normally have 1000 cows but they are in the process of drying their herd up for the winter so they are only milking around 800. They milk 60 cows at a time with a rotating floor where each cow completes the circle in 9 minutes from the time she comes in until she goes out.
7,000 gallon milk tank
Cows in the lot waiting to come in.
The farmer told us which cows were pets and would allow Linda to scratch them.
Hard to tell, but this is a circular barn. The cows are moving in a clock-wise rotation.
2 quick videos of us putting milkers on a cow.
Our first time putting milkers on from the "back" of a cow.
This is "Tom", one of the hired hands.
The far black cow on the left is coming in the barn and the black cow in the
middle is backing out after being milked.
Couldn't ask for a better view for a dairy farm.
Clean up time. They flood the lot after every milking.
David in the center of the rotating floor.
The cows in the field (or "paddock")after being milked.
This is "Alex", another hired hand. Alex is originally from South Africa. He immigrated to New Zealand with his parents 8 years ago and is now saving to buy his own dairy.
A 250 gl calf feeding tank that feeds 50 calves at a time.
We're hoping this is a sign the rain will be ending! More snow is on the mountains.
It's "Sweet As" (a saying we hear quite often here!)
9 days remaining on this great adventure until we return home, but there will be a few more post until then.
