South Island Pictures: Fox Glacier, Punakaiki, and some Nelson

You can see here how the Fox Glacier is surrounded by temperate land and rainforest. The glacier spills down the valley to the sea and is one of only two other places in the world where this happens.

A view from the top! It was a quite misty, rainy day, but we didn't let that stand in our way!

Our guide is the girl in the front in the red, and she is using her ice pick to re-cut the stairs that we climbed up the glacier that you see up to her right. You definitely need to have crampons on your shoes to climb this ice.

I cannot for the life of me remember which lake this is, but it is between the Fox Glacier and Nelson. Whenever the water is still, you get great reflections in the water around this area because of the minerals picked up by the glacial waters.

I was highly excited to stop at Punakaiki just so I could see these aptly named 'Pancake Rocks.' You can see how they seem to be pancakes all stacked up on themselves. This of course has a logical weathering explanation, but they don't seem as cool once you understand the science behind it all.

The view from the geographic centre of New Zealand. This is Nelson, and the land across the water right underneath the clouds is Abel Tasman National Park. It's a gorgeous area of the country.

Climbing the steps to the cathedral after climbing the track to the geographic centre ...

... makes for one very tired mother!