In rainy and cloudy conditions, a media pack meets daily outside the emergency centre, just before 9am.

“Unfortunately, due to the weather…” or words along those lines usually form the beginning of a briefing by Inspector John Canning, who is leading the operation to recover the seven bodies from the wreckage of Saturday's horror helicopter crash .

Two hours later he and other members of his team can be spotted at a local coffee shop.

It begins to pour down…the sound of rain drops are heavy on the café roof.

A waitress, with a thick accent, moved to the township just two weeks ago.

She comments on the lack of customers coming through the door.

“Usually we are really busy here, but for two days after the accident, there was just no-one”.

Outside there’s little to see.

Thick grey cloud covers the glacier from site.

A hotel owner comments that the view is spectacular on a sunny day…but living beside a mountainous range does make for strange weather patterns.

Inside the local information centre for tourists, customers who had booked in advance for tours of the ice ask for their money back.

It’s not yet known when flights will resume.

It’s a close-knit town, and the mood is noticeably sombre . Even for those who didn’t know 28-year-old Mitchell Gameron, the tragedy has come as a shock.

One local woman, who did not wish to be named, was worried about the consequences for tourism on the west coast.

“This is people’s summer businesses, this is their livelihoods…”

She pleaded for the tragedy to be given some perspective.

“These things happen. Accidents happen…it’s not a common occurrence at all”.

It’s estimated the total number of glacier flights sits around 60,000 per year.

Apart from the 2010 skydiving plane accident, which killed nine people, there have been relatively few major accidents for some years.

Tourists have mixed reactions to the crash.

U.K tourist Lauren Barker, who is cycling through Fox Glacier with her partner, mentioned the news had come as a shock.

The pair had met a couple who were on their honeymoon earlier in their travels, and she knew the pair of them had planned to take a helicopter tour that same day.

She feared they were on board the aircraft, and felt the tragedy had hit to close to home.

“It just feels like a lot of things are going wrong at the moment…Paris attacks and now this”.

“It all just feels quite gloomy”.