[NZBurb]

Day six: Exploring Franz Josef

We headed south 15 minutes from Frans Josef to Fox Glacier town and headed out to Lake Mattheson. It’s a small lake where the Department of Conservation have built a trail that takes 90 minutes to walk around the lake. Lots of beautify native forest with life growing everywhere.

The lake is small and often has a mirror reflection which includes Mt Cook, which is NZ’s highest mountain at 12,200 feet. We weren’t fortunate enough to have one on the day we visited due to the low cloud, however it was a stunning walk. The tourists are a bit more standoffish and are less likely to initiate a “hi” or “good morning” as you cross paths, but seemed friendly enough when you start a conversation. There seems to be a growing trend, and I am guilty of this, where people are becoming more focused on their own ‘world’ and are interacting less with the broader community. It feels like there is a strong focus on having an experience with a place but forgetting the people’s whose paths you cross along the way. I’m being incredibly hypocritical as someone who says I’m too busy or tired most of the time to have any meaningful interactions with people outside the family, so it was good to see your own reflection in others – something for me to work on in 2020.