after the rainy walk to the Fox Glacier overlook, we decided to just stay in the town of Fox Glacier rather than drive on. that was our first deviation from the five day driving tour that i had found online. (we were supposed to dive onto the town of Haast). it was rainy and getting late and just vegging in the camper sounded good to all of us.

i found a restaurant/bar that offered "carry-away." (they looked at me funny when i asked if they did take-out. i guess it's a colloquial thing.) a guy at the bar that had been drinking all day ordered "a special burger, not on the menu" from the chef. it was basically their regular burger with bacon and a fried egg. he was friendly in the mostly-harmless-tough-guy drunk sort of way. while i waited for the burgers, he bought me a beer and then proceeded to hit on the lady bar tender. if you ever wind up in Cook's Restaurant & Tavern in Fox Glacier, NZ, be sure to say hi to Liam.

anyway, the next day turned out to be clear and warm. after being in glacier country, slightly inland, we turned south along the coast. here's debbie driving with finn & michy navigating:



this beach was right off the highway and was a good place to stretch our legs. finn was in heaven with all the rocks:


our big hike for the day was to Monro Beach. a two hour out and back walk through forest to a beach that hosted a penguin colony for part of the year. signs said that they nest in September (i think), but there was chance you could see them any time of year. we never saw any.

we started off with finn walking:


we had to cross several wobbly swinging bridges. evidently, finn thought it was safer to crawl across:


we had the beach to ourselves, though some other folks arrived as we were leaving. the water was cold and a nice greenish blue:





we spent quite a bit of time playing on the beach before retracing back to the camper: