{"id":3122,"date":"2018-11-25T18:33:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T02:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/?p=3122"},"modified":"2019-03-06T19:08:14","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T03:08:14","slug":"wild-west-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/2018\/11\/25\/wild-west-coast","title":{"rendered":"Wild West Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Flew on a helicopter to a glacier, no big deal. Guides are mandatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Stopped in Hokatika for lunch, and bought some lovely greenstone necklaces and a kiwibird for our curio collection at Waewae Pounamu.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While our NZ Frenzy<\/a> book has lots of hidden spots along the coast road, due to my planning we just don’t have enough time to explore the coast here; we have a chopper to catch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We picked Fox Glacier<\/a> because it seemed like it might be less crowded than Franz Josef, so I was a bit disappointed when we arrived to find a big group waiting as well. After the safety briefing, half in Chinese for their growing number of foreign tourists, we were placed into smaller groups with individual guides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"
Very important<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
The Helicopter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Chill Pilot
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

And once we were on the ice, I didn’t care. The experience was worth every penny for the flight, and the guides were very professional and gracious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n\"Exciting<\/a>\n<\/div>
Exciting Ice Tunnel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"Fox<\/a>\n<\/div>
Meltwater Pool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n\"Glacier<\/a>\n<\/div>
Our guide Sophie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"Leaping<\/a>\n<\/div>
Crossing the Stream<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

After the hike we stayed at a camper park in town. We’re getting good at setting up the bed in the back, and we slept well with a nice view of the mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning we woke up to walk around Lake Matheson which has great reflections due to the high vegetation content in the water. The wind-blown ripples made a perfect mirror impossible, but we got some good shots and had an excellent breakfast at the cafe<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n\"Lake<\/a>\n<\/div>
Lake Matheson Ripples<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n\"Silverfern\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
Silverfern
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flew on a helicopter to a glacier, no big deal. Guides are mandatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[128],"class_list":["post-3122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-down-under","tag-new-zealand"],"geo":{"latitude":-43.46418,"longitude":170.0174103,"description":"Fox Glacier, Westland District, West Coast, 7859, New Zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3122"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3132,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122\/revisions\/3132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levinger.net\/josh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}