3/13/15 Fox Glacier to Greymough

The majority of of group were planning a helicopter ride and walk on the glacier this morning, but the weather was rainy and quite cloudy so it was cancelled.  We drove up to Franz Joseph Glacier Valley and took a lovely long walk in the rain to see the glacier.  It is much smaller than what we saw in 2007.  I would say that it had receded at least a quarter of a mile.  We had a local guide for the walk and he was very knowledgeable about the area and glaciers in general.  We got a bit soaked, but it didn't take too long to dry out.  We had lunch in town aftr the walk and then continued on to Hokitika, home of the pounamu (New Zealand jade).  We watch some of the carvers at work and then admired the lovely pieced in the shops.  We then continued to Greymouth where we had dinner in the hotel.  Lana and I had brought extra school supplies thinking that we would have a school visit in NZ,  We decided to give the extra supplies to Rhonda, our waitress, as she has two little girls, 6 1/2 and 4 1/2.