A bright morning greeted us and we sped off North up the west coast through the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area.Much of the area is temperate rain forest,crossed by rivers and creeks from the looming mountains to the East and the sea shore is full of driftwood and salt spray from the breakers. Our first stop was Ship Creek named because a wreck was once found there but they had no idea which vessel it was until extensive research showed it had been wrecked off the coast of Victoria and had drifted 2000km. There are two completely different walks here that showcase the diversity of the landscape of this area,a dune lake walk and a swamp forest walk. The forest trees,named White Pine by captain Cook, were found to be perfect for use in transporting butter and cheese in the new refrigerated boats in the 1880's and are new Zealand's tallest trees. Our next stop was Knight's Point with lovely coastal views and a memorial to those who helped build the road South,started in 1905 and finished in 1965. The last 10km took 2 years which is no surprise as the mountainous road had rockfall evidence everywhere and the viewing platform was fenced off due to subsidence which we could see by the cracks in the Tarmac by it. In the next town marked on the map which appeared to be two houses,a cafe and a bridge we bought some local smoked salmon and pate. We could see the fish tanks right by the cafe. We stopped for a sandwich in Bruce Bay right by the sea.In between all the driftwood we could see white stones with people's names written on. Next stop was something we had been looking forward to for some time,a walk up the stony river valley to see the Fox Glacier. It was an amazing blue colour but was was so sobering was seeing how far it had retreated in the last 10 years,let alone the two miles in the last 70! Tomorrow if the weather is ok we hope to fly up onto the glacier,fingers crossed!