Greymouth
I like glaciers. They are cool. You could probably even say I love glaciers. There are two on the west coast of the South Island of note, the Fox and the Franz Joseph. To be honest, they are not all that impressive compared to the glaciers of the Rockies or Alaska, but what makes them kind of unique to my experience is you drive through a coastal rainforest to get to them- with giant ferns looking just like palm trees. Since it was raining and muddy, gabrielle left me to my own devices to explore Fox, but gamely came with to see the bigger Franz Joseph. This is a big deal since gabrielle is mortally opposed to anything icy and cold. Whereas I am completely in my element, what with polar bear sensibilities and all. "Peter Jackson didn't use any glaciers in LOTR," she grumbled good-naturedly, illustrating yet another reason why she shouldn't be expected to explore these magnificent relics of a departed Age of Ice. "Yes he did," I replied. "Didn't he use these for the Shire? No? Well, I think he used time-lapse photography to record the flow of the glacier, and then digitally turned it red and used it for Mt Doom's lava." But she didn't buy it.