Instead of hiking the ten miles to Roy’s Peak, we decided to go on five little hikes to break up our longer drive. We were still fighting off some low level colds and just didn’t have a long hike in us. We left from Wanaka after getting the obligatory flat white and pie. The drive out was gorgeous.

The rain was just starting to mist as we arrived at our first hike, the Blue Pools. We were able to see some New Zealand pigeons (kererū) in the trees as well as gorgeous thick forests. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, for two people from drought-stricken Southwest Colorado we were in hog heaven having moisture above 5% and seeing rain and green trees.

We emerged from the jungle to see the blue pools. They really are blue, the result of refraction from snowmelt-fed, clear waters.

You get to cross a couple well made bridges and can look down. Brown and rainbow trout are both visible in the water which is neat.

This hike is super easy, really just a stroll. It’s 1.5 km (0.9 miles), around 30 minutes.

We then drove to Fantail Falls which is all of 0.2 mi and elevation gain of a whopping 19 feet of a “hike”. The waterfall is 75 feet (23m).

We hopped back in the car and did the same thing at Thunder Creek Falls which is a 2 minute walk from the parking lot. This was a much bigger waterfall, 28 meters (90 feet) made from a retreating glacier.

There were a lot more of these waterfalls and attractions to see but we just enjoyed the drive as it got steeper and steeper.

We stopped at Ship Creek Dune Lake Walk. This hike was mostly just seeing a beach and the Tasman Sea. Due to the dunes and high tides there was a large tide pool, beach, and then the actual sea. It looked like a rugged, jungle-y place out of a movie.

We switched driving and I got us to the Fox Glacier area where we were staying in a private little room part of a larger campground.

We went to the only real store in the area and bought charcuterie for dinner. We bought gouda, brie, some manuka (honey) smoked sourdough, blueberries and an apricot and capsicum chutney. The campground rented us two coffee cups for our wine. We enjoyed this all outside as we waited for the sun to go down so we could go on a glowworm hike.

Glowworms exist all over the world in different forms (typically beetles) but the glowworms we were going to see are rare fungus gnat larvae. They use a chemical reaction to create a blue green light that attracts prey onto their sticky bodies. The glow fades in and out like a firefly. They don’t move like a firefly, though. They hang out under branches and leaves in dark crevasses. In caves they’ll be above you, but for this hike you can walk on your own and see them without paying for a tour.

This is the Minnehaha Walk in Fox Glacier. It’s about 15 minutes but in the dark it feels much longer. You’ll want to let your eyes adjust (we have a red flashlight setting so this helped a lot). We saw plenty of families and groups walking loudly by us not seeing the glowworms at all. Stand still and stay quiet and eventually you’ll see them. Once you know what you’re looking at you’ll see more. It seems weird to not include a photo but keep in mind they’re very small so this photo looks like stars, it’s not. Its the bottom of a fallen tree with the roots covered in the little glowworms, er, fungus gnat larvae.

The other highlight of this hike was spotting this invasive marsupial trying to ruin everything. Keep in mind this guy is being absolutely lit up by some German tourists’ flashlights but he deserves worse.

They actively hunt threatened and endangered birds (eggs, chicks and adults – they’ll eat it all). When they’re not doing that they eat enough plant matter everyday to actually reduce the amount of trees and canopy cover. They also carry bovine tuberculosis which threatens the meat and cheese industry of the country. Current estimates suggest tens of millions of dollars in damages. They were introduced to have something to hunt for the fur trade in the 1800s and, whoops, there are no predators in New Zealand so their populations exploded.

We left him be and did the hike in reverse rather than walking out so we could see more glowworms. Then we went to bed so we could hike and drive more the next day.