Parks and the outdoors in Fox Glacier

10 parks, gardens, beaches and walks in and around Fox Glacier.

Ranked with the travel guide's picks and well-known places first.

Do
Chalet Lookout Walk
1 hour 15 minute round-trip with a stream crossing to find a beautiful lookout point over the glacier.
Do
Fox Glacier Guiding
The most experienced New Zealand glacier guiding company, offering guided trips onto the glacier. There's the Fox Trot: half-day walk, Flying Fox: heli-hike, Nimble Fox: all-day walk, Fox Trail: Terminal Face walk, Fox It Up: ice-climbing adventure, Chancellor Dome day and overnight heli-treks. The heli-hikes have limited spaces, so booking beforehand could guarantee a spot.
$69-700
See
Gillespies Beach
An 11-km drive down a twisting unsealed road through a rimu rainforest leads to a camping area. From here, walk a bit more and you'll find yourself on a black sand/quartz pebble beach on the Tasman Sea. Near the beach entrance is the rusted and overgrown historic gold dredge, remnants of an old mining settlement. Several kilometres up the beach you can visit a seal colony on Galway Beach, which is a three-hour round-trip walk. Be warned, the number of sandflies here is ridiculously high at the beach, so don't forget to bring insect repellent!
See
Lake Matheson
Take the 4.4-km walk around the lake to see the beautiful reflection of Aoraki/Mt Cook and Mt Tasman on its dark waters. The lake was formed during the last Ice Age retreat by Fox Glacier 14,000 years ago. The track is well maintained, and there are boardwalks and specially-made platforms for getting the right angle for your pictures. The best light is at dawn, and it's about 20 minutes to the first lookout (and 20 minutes back if you don't want to walk the whole way) and 40 minutes to a floating pontoon.
Eat
Lake Matheson Cafe
Coffee, and during the busy season, breakfast; dinner is on blackboard menus and change to suit seasonal ingredients. Deli style sandwiches, cakes, pies, cookies and salads with all products made on site. Great views of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman.
Nov–Mar: daily 7:30AM-late; Apr–Oct 8AM-4PM
Do
Minnehaha Walk
A 20-min round trip through the rainforest on the outskirts of town. Take a torch at night to see glow-worms in the tree trunks and along the banks of the stream.
Do
Moraine Walk
Tramp over moraine surface into native bush for a 40-min round trip.
See
Peak View Lookout
Drive down Cook Flat Rd for 10 km west of the township past the Lake Matheson turnoff until it becomes an unsealed road for the best view of the peaks of Aoraki/Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. There's a picnic area and a plane table which can be used to identify the different peaks of the Southern Alps.
Do
Swing Bridge Walk
River Walk
Walk down to the valley before crossing a historic swing bridge that spans Fox River. 40 min return.
Do
Unguided walk
It's roughly a 1- to 2-hour round-trip trek to the glacier. The track can be cumbersome in places, requiring balance to scramble down slick rocks and across small streams, but still easy enough for inexperienced trampers. Unlike Franz Josef, the glacier will not be in sight for some parts of the walk, but you can get much closer to it. Do not proceed past the barriers at the terminal face of the glacier, as the area is extremely dangerous. Two tourists were killed by falling ice after they crossed the barriers in 2009. If you want to step onto the ice, take a guided walk. As of Apr 2019, the Fox Glacier access road (north road of Fox River) is closed due to landslide. Glacier View Road (south road of Fox River) is also closed to vehicles but you can walk on the road.
Free

Listings from the Wikivoyage guide to Fox Glacier (CC BY-SA 4.0).