Lake Matheson

Lake Matheson lies a few minutes west of Fox Glacier village, in a hollow left behind when the glacier retreated. Its water is stained dark brown by leaf litter from the surrounding forest, and that darkness is exactly why it works as a mirror: on a still morning the surface holds an almost unbroken reflection of Aoraki and Mount Tasman, the two highest peaks in the country, standing above the bush on the far side. A flat loop track runs right around the shore through kahikatea and rimu, with viewing platforms built out at the two points where the mountains line up. The circuit takes about ninety minutes at an easy pace.

History

Te Ara Kairaumati was a mahinga kai, a food-gathering place, for Māori travelling the coast to collect pounamu, who stopped here to catch longfin eels and waterbirds; the first European settlers on the Cook River flats named it after Murdoch Matheson, a cattle farmer in the 1870s. As tourism grew in the early 20th century the lake became famous for its reflections of the Southern Alps, and from the 1950s the Fox Glacier Hotel ran early-morning trips, a bus ride and a walk through the bush and then a rowing boat out to Reflection Island to wait for the ripples to settle. The view of Aoraki / Mount Cook and Mount Tasman in the water became a much-reproduced image, on chocolate boxes, beer bottles and at least five New Zealand stamp issues from 1946 onwards (Wikipedia, Lake Matheson).

Highlights

• The reflection - Aoraki and Mount Tasman mirrored in the dark water on calm mornings.
• The View of Views platform - the jetty at the far end of the loop, built for the mountain line-up.
• Podocarp forest - tall kahikatea and rimu along the whole circuit.
• The dark water - the tannin-stained surface that makes the reflection possible.

When to go

Dawn on a windless, cloudless morning is the only time the reflection is reliable, and those mornings are not common in a place this wet. Autumn and winter bring more settled, frosty starts than summer does. The track is easy year round, and even without the mountains the forest walk stands up on its own. There is no gate, so early starts are possible.

Things to know

The peaks are hidden by cloud on most days, and even a light breeze wipes the reflection out, so many visitors walk the loop and see brown water and trees. Sandflies are ferocious around the platforms, especially at dawn. The track is flat but muddy after rain. The car park is small and fills quickly once the tour buses reach Fox.

Nearby

Fox Glacier village is minutes away, with Gillespies Beach on the coast and Franz Josef half an hour north.

Key facts