Dunedin’s Rudy Adrian takes in a view of New Zealand’s two highest peaks - Aoraki/Mt Cook and Mt Tasman - with their snow-capped tops reflected on the calm surface of Lake Matheson on the South Island’s West Coast.
It's one of those instantly recognisable images, often featured in tourist brochures, but one I never tire of whenever I get a chance to walk to the far end of the lake while passing through Fox Glacier township.
But this time I’m not just here for only an hour and doing the short loop around Lake Matheson. Instead, I’m planning to hike the recently reopened 3-hour-return walk to another, less visited West Coast lake.
Looking on the map, Lake Gault is several times larger than Lake Matheson and is located further into the dense West Coast bush.
I’ve been aware of this hidden lake since seeing a map showing a track to it in the 1970s. But in recent decades, the track had disappeared off the map.
"It had just turned into a stream bed - a little creek had run down the track and eroded away a lot of the base of the track and it was very difficult to walk up", former Fox Glacier guide Rodger Millard later tells me.
But the fortunes of the Lake Gault track changed after a huge landslip in 2019 permanently took out the access road to the Fox Glacier terminus.
In response, the Government announced a $3.9 million investment from the International Visitor Tourism and Conservation Levy to create more hiking tracks around the Fox Glacier area. The hope was this would help offset the impact that the closure of the access road would have on tourism.
"It’s all glacial moraine and you come across rocks the size of a washing machine that are just underground and there’s no way that you can shift them.
"It was pretty obvious it was going to be too much for the man and lady power we had."
Instead, $526,000 of government money has been spent on contractors with a digger to carve out a new track. A helicopter dropped off load after load of gravel, turning it into a neatly gravelled pathway.
The hike to Lake Gault involves a gentle zig-zagging climb up to a moraine terrace above Lake Matheson, taking the hiker through mature rimu and kahikatea forest, filled with a thick understorey of smaller trees and ferns.
In recent years there’s been a lot of trapping and poisoning of introduced predators in the Fox Glacier area and it’s starting to pay off, with occasional tui calls ringing among the trees.
Every part of the track is beautifully constructed and maintained, and I’m a bit disappointed that during my visit it seems I’m the only person making use of this half-million-dollar pathway.
Doc South Westland operations manager Wayne Costello later tells me the staff of the cafe at Lake Matheson are employed through the Jobs For Nature initiative to look after the track and the adjacent water drain.
"It’s been pretty important because when you put a new track in, there’s always a bit of settling in, and you often get banks that collapse and that fills in the drain. When you get a lot of rain, like we do, the drain gets blocked so the water gets out and scours the track.
"They’ve maintained that really, really well. In fact, I haven’t seen better looked-after drains," he says, laughing.
After reaching the top of the zig-zags through the forest up the moraine ridge, I press on through the forest to Lake Gault. Any faint sounds of traffic and farming I might have been able to hear at the start of my hike have disappeared and I really feel like I’m deep in the West Coast forest.
Apart from the occasional bird song, it’s completely quiet and serene.
Other than a small wooden bench to sit on, there isn’t much else to do other than look at the view. Mr Millard later tells me he’s still hoping Doc will continue with an original proposal of putting a picnic shelter at the small beach on Lake Gault.
"It would make it a good track that you could spend a couple of hours walking up and relax at the far end, have a picnic, have a meal, sleep in the shelter overnight if you wanted to watch the sunrise."
He also tell me that thanks to a predator control programme, the Okarito kiwi - also called Rowi - are being released in the area.
Twenty years ago, the numbers of this bird were very low at less than 200. Now with a recovery programme, the population is more than 600.
With the forest at Okarito now well-stocked with kiwi, more than 100 have been released in the Lake Matheson and Lake Gault area, with people sometimes hearing their calls at night.
"More businesses looking to use nature as the basis of their business, rather than people visiting and just seeing the glaciers, is pretty cool for us, and diversify why people might come and visit us here."
Arriving back to the more popular Lake Matheson, I talk with one of the dozen or so visitors who are doing just the short 15-minute walk to the first viewpoint.
Helen Askwith says she and her boyfriend had originally considered doing the walk to Lake Gault, but as the borders opened up, her parents flew in from England and their itinerary changed.
"We just decided not to do it today, to save time. We decided to just do Lake Matheson and then go to Gillespies Beach," she said.
As well as the reinstatement of the Lake Gault track, the rest of the $3.9 million has gone towards projects such as upgrading a walk along the south side of the Fox River to a fairly distant viewpoint of the glacier.
There’s also a track through various moraines, with signs to convey the story of the glacier’s advances and retreats over the thousands of years, as well as a walkway across the lagoon at Gillespies Beach that’s been repaired.
"More people will go and do Lake Gault and some of the other activities around here. The lake hasn’t got a lot of publicity around it yet but I’m sure that’ll build up over time," says Mr Costello.
Back at Fox Glacier township, Fox Glacier Guiding lead guide Marius Bron backs up Mr Costello’s positive view of the new track.
He says it makes a good alternative for tourists on days when the weather prevents aircraft from landing on the glacier.
"It’s part of the wider package of the area and it’s a great thing to support glacier tourism with other activities, so when there’s trouble happening up the valley, we’ve got alternative activities. And it helps spread people out and give a nice, quiet wilderness experience - I love going up there myself."
