Franz Josef / Waiau village

6 min read Updated October 2026 Compare all tours

Franz Josef/Waiau lies on State Highway 6 where the road meets the boundary of Westland Tai Poutini National Park. About 500 people live here year round. The operators for flights, heli-hikes, kayaking and quad bikes check you in at offices in the village centre, several of them on Main Road and Cron Street. Hokitika is about 1.5 to 2 hours' drive to the north, Haast about two hours to the south.

The visitor centre

DOC runs the Westland Tai Poutini National Park Visitor Centre in the Glacier Base Building at 69 Cron Street, at the north end of the village. It opens daily from 8:30 am to 5 pm, with a lunch break at weekends and on public holidays, and closes on Christmas Day. Staff give out safety information for the glacier valley, the weather forecast and track advice, and you can hire a personal locator beacon, pick up maps, use the public toilets and connect to free wifi. The phone number is +64 21 947 990. For emergencies anywhere in the area, dial 111.

Kiwi at the Wildlife Centre

The West Coast Wildlife Centre on Cron Street is the official hatching facility for the two rarest kiwi, the rowi and the Haast tokoeka. Its nocturnal house shows live kiwi during the day in an open room without glass, and there are tuatara and ambassador penguins, with penguin feeding at 11 am and 3 pm. The entry ticket is valid for 48 hours, and a visit takes between 30 minutes and two hours. Reviews mention that the centre is small and that you may see only a couple of kiwi; it works best as one stop on a wet day rather than a half-day outing.

The backstage tour takes up to eight people behind the scenes of the incubation and hatching rooms for about 40 minutes, at 10 am, 12 pm, 2 pm and 4 pm, with entry to the main centre included. It is not for children under 5. Eggs or chicks are not always there, and several reviewers saw only the rooms and the same kiwi as on a normal ticket.

Hot pools and the Terrace Walk

Glacier Hot Pools, on Cron Street in the village centre, has three main pools and three private pools in native forest, between 36 and 40 °C and fed with local glacier water. They are open all year. Waiho Hot Tubs offers a private alternative: a tub filled with mountain stream water in the rainforest, where you set the temperature yourself and can add Epsom salts or lavender.

The Terrace Walk on the edge of the village takes about 30 minutes and is graded Easiest by DOC. A slip has closed the track beyond the seats at its end, so you return the way you came. After dark, glow-worms shine along the banks; bring a torch.

Tours that start on the main street

Most flights check in in the village and take you by van or on foot to the helipad. Glacier Country Helicopters checks in at 10 Main Road for its 25-minute flight with a landing above the glacier, where in summer the landing site may have no snow. The heli-hike leaves from the Franz Josef Glacier Guides base on Cron Street. Kayaking on Lake Mapourika also starts in central Franz Josef, with transport to the lake, ten minutes north on the highway; it runs in the rain, and the operator notes that the lake gets much less rain than the village.

The quad bike tour starts at an office in the village and runs across glacier-fed riverbeds, muddy grassland and rainforest tracks on automatic single quads; drivers need to be 16 but do not need a licence. Several reviewers expected a view of the glacier and did not get one, as the route stays on the valley floor. Our page on things to do in Franz Josef lists these with the other options.

The river and the road

The Waiho River, which drains the glacier, runs along the south side of the village and has threatened it more than once. In January 2024 it changed course, sending about 95 percent of its main flow north through the Tatare Stream, and in 2023 a higher northern stopbank, funded by the government, was proposed to protect the village for about 20 years. When heavy rain is forecast, follow local warnings and check the glacier access report before driving up the valley.

State Highway 6 is the only road to the glaciers. On the Haast Pass route towards Wānaka, between Makarora and Hāwea, it was closed after a winter storm on 28 August 2026, reopened to escorted convoys a few days later and returned to full use on 23 October 2026. NZTA kept a 50 km/h limit at the Waterfall Slip and traffic lights at Windy Point while the clean-up continued. Before a long drive, check the NZTA Journey Planner. InterCity buses stop on Main Road and link the village with Queenstown, Greymouth and Nelson.

For the glacier valley itself, see our page on Franz Josef Glacier, and for a quieter side trip, Ōkārito is 25 minutes up the coast.