The enchanting Minnehaha Walk is one of Fox Glacier’s must do’s. It’s rare that a walk this short and easy has so much to offer. The walk takes you through pristine rainforest which is positively dripping in moss - it truly feels like a scene from a fairytale! And if you return after dark you’ll see a whole different side to the rainforest - lit by the tiny twinkling blue lights of a glow worm colony!
Here’s everything you need to know about the Minnehaha Walk by day and by night.
The Minnehaha Walk
The stats
Distance: 1km loop
Elevation: Flat - 0m elevation gained
Difficulty: Very easy, wheelchairs will be fine on this track provided they are ok with gravel
Time needed: 20 minutes
Summary: The Minnehaha Walk is a rare find in New Zealand - a completely flat walk. This trail is short, but doesn’t compromise on the wow factor. Rarely have we seen such a beautiful forest trail that’s walking distance from the centre of town….
The walk by day
The Minnehaha Walk begins just off the main street in Fox Glacier. The moment you set foot on the trail you are transported to another world.
The gravel path is wide and even, but the forest surrounding it is all wild. You’ll pass oodles of towering tree ferns, hanging vines, giant gnarled tree trunks and of course a staggering amount of moss. Given half the chance the moss would take over the whole path!
You’ll start by passing a crystal clear stream, so clear it’s easy to spot the fish! After you leave the stream it’s breathtaking forest all the way.
It really is like a fairytale, it might be just a 20 minute walk but we still took hundreds of photos!
If you want it to look extra special, it’s lovely in the late afternoon when the light rays shine through gaps in the forest canopy and bathe parts of the trees and ferns in golden light.
The easy pathway means that you don’t need to watch your feet and can fully relax and immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of the forest.
The Minnehaha Walk by night
By night the forest has a different feel, not eerie but magical. But finding the glow worms was not quite what we had expected. When visiting glow worm colonies in Australia you tend to head for a particular spot, you’ll find a smattering of them along the way, but generally there are one or two spots that have very dense numbers.
At Minnehaha it was slightly different. They were scattered along most of the trail, but generally in much smaller numbers.
We didn’t see any for the first few hundred metres (where light from the road penetrated the forest), but after that we started to see them everywhere. The trick is to pause, switch off your torch and wait for your eyes to adjust. You’ll soon start to see them twinkling throughout the forest.
They seemed to love the gnarled tree trunks and particularly mossy areas. Look in the cracks and crevices in the tree trunks and embankment and when you spot a few, crouch down - we found lots were in spots you wouldn’t see at ground level.
Glow Worm Dell by day
Glow Worm Dell by night
We found the most glow worms between 200m and 400m into the trail and then just before the barriers that stop bikes entering the loop. Around a metre before this barrier was a bush that had by far the biggest number clustered together that we found - over a hundred of them!
You will find lots of glow worms in all sorts of places if you remember to keep switching your torch off and letting your eyes adjust. If you keep your torch on you will likely struggle to see any at all! It takes a bit longer to get round the track when you have to keep stopping and turning your torch off, but patience reaps rewards here!
It’s very special to see them twinkling in the trees without the help of a tour guide. It’s just you and the glow worms : )
Looking after the glow worms
Please don’t shine your torch on the glow worms - if you do they will turn their lights off and they won’t attract any food! You can use your torch to shine at the path and then turn it off to view the glow worms. The only light that doesn’t affect them is a red light, but even so you really diminish what your eyes can see with a torch on.
Where to park for the Minnehaha Walk
You can walk to the start of the trail from anywhere in town, but there are a few parking spaces at the side of the road right by the trailhead too. It’s on the Haast Highway at the southern end of Fox Glacier (it’s marked on Google Maps).
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