Road Trip: Day 10 - Lake Paringa

This morning, we went back to the beach to see if we could finish our construction. In the end, it was too much to build, but we managed to get a bit of the front done and stuffed out with seaweed. Then, after a hurried breakfast, we broke off to Franz Josef Glacier to do some walks. At the glacier, we walked to 175 metres away from the glacier, past some waterfalls, that fed the river flowing from the glacier. Afterwards, we walked to a cool lookout and then to a kettle lake called Peters Pool. A kettle lake is a lake that is formed when an underground block of ice melts, the earth above it collapses and then water fills in the hole. Also, the name is derived from Peter Westland who, when he was nine years old, camped at the formerly unnamed pond in the early 19 hundreds.

In front of Franz Josef

After going to Peters Pool, we continued and went to another swingbridge, a shorter one though. Then we crossed it and continued along a tramping track with the aim to get to a longer, 1-person swingbridge. But the track got too steep and we turned around.

On the swingbridge

We drove to Lake Paringa, which isn’t even a town, its a lake. The only buildings there are the Lake Paringa Lodge — where we stayed —, and a DOC (Department of Conservation) campground. There were also some friendly campers riding bikes that, their destination being Fox Glacier, had to ask for a lift. We weren’t able to do that, since Fox Glacier was just past Franz Josef and about 200 kilometres away, but we were able to give them food, as they had thought that there was food at Lake Paringa.