Friday, July 22, 2011

Franz Josef Glacier and Wanaka

After the late night at Lake Mahinapua after walking down to the lake to see the glow worms we set off for Franz Josef 9:30. As both Iona and I had pretty much emptied our bags out the night before we had to get up nice and early to pack our bags. Despite starting an hour before we had to leave, we were still packing right up until we needed to leave. 

It was a picturesque drive down to Franz Josef and the snow on the mountains was getting thicker as we headed down. Once we arrived at Franz Josef we had an orientation for the hike we were taking on the glacier the next day. After watching the safety video I was getting a bit worried about doing it. I'm full of a cold and all the walks we had been doing I was getting way out of breathe so I actually wondered if I would be fit enough to do it. 


As the hike was a full day adventure, I just relaxed the night before and got an early night.  We were up nice and early the next day and headed down to the office to be kitted out in our gear and travel up to the glacier. We were given our waterproof trousers, jacket, thermal socks, massive heavy hiking boots, crampons and gloves. I already had on 4 layers of tops. The group was driven up to valley the glacier was in and we began the hike through the rainforest. Then we were on to the river bed of rocks where the glacier used to be. As we approached the glacier it didn't look that far away or big. We split into groups and as the first group began climbing up what looked like a pile of gravel I realised that it was all a lot bigger than I initially thought. They looked like ants walking up that "gravel hill". 





Once we got to the top of the "gravel hill" it was time to put our crampons on before getting onto the ice. I was in the last group and we began by walking down these steps carved out of the ice. The instructors all had ice axes and needed to carve the steps out of the ice so that we could climb up and down steep ice. Quite often we would have to wait for a couple of minutes while our gorgeous guide Levi cleared a path for us.

We then got to our first ice tunnel. When Levi told us we would we would be going through it I just stood there in disbelief. There was no way I was going to fit through the thin gap. We could either stand, lean back and shimmy through it or crawl through. I opted for the crawling and I felt like a worm trying to push my way through. 

The first ice crevasse we had to go through was called Powderpuff. It was beautiful inside. The walls went so high and you were just surrounded by blue ice. At some points it got so narrow I had to take my bag off, I was pushed up against the ice walls and could only move one foot forward to pull myself along. 

At one point we had to climb over a massive drop in the ice. It was quite scary in parts. You had to put a lot of trust in that your crampons would hold your weight and sometimes you would put your foot down on the snow and it would be a lot deeper than you anticipated. 








When we got to the highest point we could get to that day we stopped for a break. As we were getting ready to head back down the glacier we heard a crack. We looked up to see where the sound was coming from and could see some rocks falling away from the mountain. Suddenly a big chunk, probably the size of a house, fell away and there was so much debris coming down. It was pretty amazing to watch and be safe in the knowledge we were far enough away for it not to be a danger. The guide said stuff like that happened quite often but it was one of the bigger ones he had seen. After a while it looked like a waterfall with all the snow coming down. Quite pretty really. One thing I've learnt and witnessed while here in New Zealand is how beautiful and volatile nature is. I've lost count of how many things I've seen (like landslides, results of earthquakes etc) since I've been here. It's mental.






This is a Kea bird. The only alpine parrot. loves rubber and are really smart. It didn't care about humans and came so close to us. Apparently they'll have the rubber off your car in 5 minutes.


Once we got back I was exhausted. I had a hot shower, got some food and went to bed as it was a 7:30 start the next day. First stop of the day was Lake Matheson which  is New Zealand's most famous mirror lake. Unfortunately the birds spoilt that one for us so it wasn't very still but it was a lovely view over to Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. 



General view from the bus while travelling down south:



We made it into Wanaka and headed out to the lake to skim stones. I managed to do four! I was really proud of myself!






Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Snow in July.

On Saturday I got up bright and early and caught the ferry from Wellington over to Picton on the south island. It was a 3 hour journey and I spent most of the time in a comfy seat trying to get some sleep. As the ferry got closer to Picton we traveled down the fjord (or fiord as they spell it over here) It was a beautiful view.



After waiting for what felt like forever for my bag to arrive (we had to check them in like you do at the airport), I finally got on the bus and we headed down to Nelson. Once checked in to the hostel a group of us took a hike up to the centre of New Zealand.



Apparently Nelson is the sunniest place in New Zealand and so far we've been lucky to have sun every day. Not seen any rain since the north island! Touch wood. We left Nelson for Westport. On the way we stopped off at Nelson Lakes and took a walk in the reserve up there. We had a picnic lunch by the lake (in the snow) and watched as a group from the boat decided to jump into the lake.






When we got to Westport a lot of people had gone to do the jet boating activity. Me and Ailin decided to take a walk to the beach in an attempt to see the sunset. The trip failed when the sun went behind the cloud, never to be seen again. So we walked back to the hostel (it took about 40minutes each way) and tried not to get run over by any of the boy racers.


The next morning we took a walk along the coast. It was like walking along the coast in England. All that was missing was a bit of rain. We did see seals though which is not something we see often back home. We also stopped off at Pancake Rocks to try and see the blow holes but we didn't see any water getting blown up...





We headed over to Greymouth to do a bit of shopping before heading to Lake Mahinapua where we were having a fancy dress party, the theme for which was 'Bad Taste'. There were people dressed up as babies, prostitutes, rapists and just general bad clothes. I played it safe with an 80s look. You can't beat a bit of blue eye makeup for bad taste. It was such a random place. We were in the middle of nowhere, just staying at this pub by the state highway with just some cows and campers for company. As the night drew to an end a group of us decided to take a walk down to the lake to see some glow worms. They were just beautiful. They were like stars on the ground.


Today we arrived in Franz Josef. It's a beautiful place and tomorrow I'm going for hike up on the glacier. The drive up here has been a scenic drive and I'm loving the snow topped mountains!






Wish me luck for tomorrow!!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Still in Welligton.

After our adventure down in the caves, we headed over to Rotorua - the cultural capital of New Zealand. Apparently it's the most visited place in the whole country. It's a pretty small town considering this. The next sentence may not be completely correct. But Bods told us something along the lines of that Rotorua is the place where the earth's crust is the thinist. And because of this the ground is naturally quite warm and you get all these hot springs and whatever.




As you drive into Rotorua the first thing you notice is that there is steam coming up all over the place. The second thing you notice is the smell. It's a kin to rotten eggs. The first is due to all the thermal areas, basically there's a load of hot water coming out all over the place. The second is due to all the sulphur being thrown out by these thermal areas. You get used to not breathing through the nose. First thing I did when I got there was to take a walk around the park. The water in the pools was pretty warm considering it was such a cold day. It was a nice park but the problem was that when the wind changed direction the chances were that you were going to get a face full of warm, eggy smelling steam. Not nice.

That evening me and some of the people from the bus went to Tamaki Maori Village for the cultural experience. The bus driver who drove us over to the village was hilarious and the price of the night was worth it alone for him. He began to tell us a bit about Maori culture and stuff. He was explaining what 'Kia Ora' means and translated it into 63 languages. His accents were spot on and he just mocked every nationality. A Chief was chosen for the group, basically the only guy on the bus who played rugby because, according to the bus driver, only real men play rugby.

The first experience we had was the Powhiri. This was done back in the day to suss out whether the new guys came in peace or were there the start a fight.





It was pretty intense stuff and I don't know how the chosen chiefs were able to keep a straight face when the warriors were doing all their moves in their faces. Once a peace offering was laid down and accepted we were allowed to enter the village. Here we got to learn about how the Maori people lived and more about their cultural practices - tattooing, weaving, carving, training and cooking - that kind of thing.



From there we watched our food for the night be taken out of the hangi pits. The food had been cooked in the ground over hot volcanic rocks and the cheifs had to dig it out.





While to food was prepared we went into the meeting house for a cultural performance. It was pretty cool and I think I just sat there a little bit in awe as they sang, danced with poi and did the haka. The food was actually amazing and after a couple of living on soup and pasta, a huge roast dinner was pretty good. Before leaving all the men attempted to do the haka. I will never stop laughing at how funny little white guys look next to huge Maori men while trying to do the haka.

The drive home was as entertaining as the way there, if not better. The bus driver sang us about 15 different national anthems and got different people on the bus to sing songs in their languages. Then came the sing song of the wheels on the bus, the bus driver taking it pretty literally. Then the sing a long of 'here we go round the mulberry bush', during which the bus driver drove around the round about countless times. We met everyone at the pub next door in time for the quiz, which we won and got four nights free accommodation! I knew my knowledge of chick flicks would come in handy one day.



After Rotorua, the next stop was Taupo. The weather was terrible so I didn't really see much. We went to Huka Falls but I was quite underwhelmed by it, it just reminded me of places I'd seen in Norway.


Lake Taupo is huuuuge but I couldn't see the mountains (volcanos) in the distance as it was too cloudy. As I wasn't keen on doing a sky dive or bungy jump I decided to skip ahead a day on the bus, so the next day I boarded a new bus and began the journey down to Wellington. We spent one night in River Valley lodge where there should have been the chance to go rafting and horseback riding but because the weather was so bad it was all cancelled. Instead we just sat in front of the fire and played card games. This was the cheapest place I've stayed (at 22 dollars for the night) but it was probably because I was sharing a room with 15 other people. It was pretty crazy.



The lodge was pretty nice but the toilets and showers were outside, which was just a massive effort when it was raining. I braved the weather to get a shower. I was enjoying the hot water trying to forget the cold wind coming through the shower room when I see this huge spider on the shower curtain. I then realise there's actually two of these spiders which were unlike anything else I've seen. I try to tell myself that I'm ok and as long as they don't move I'm ok to finish showering. They start moving. So mid hair wash I rush out of the shower. Obviously there would be someone just outside to witness all this, much to my embarrassment.

Early the next day we set off for Wellington. On the way we stopped off at some place where a scene from LOTR 2 was filmed. It's the bit where Gollum is catching fishes in the night doing his 'my fishies' speil.




We also stopped off at a place called Bulls. This town obviously liked to play on their place name. The pub was called the 'Social-a-bull', the library 'Read-a-bull', the police station 'Const-a-bull'. All the bins had 'Response-a-bull' on them. It was a quirky little place. It was probably the only place where the local estate agent, a woman in her late 50s, would us 'No Bull' as her slogan.

We got into Wellington at about 2pm yesterday. After checking in at the hostel I took a walk along the harbour and went to the museum, wasting a couple of hours. It was interesting but some of it is just the same as I had seen in other museums. Today I took another walk around and took the cable car up to the botanical gardens.







The problem with travelling on your own is that there are always arm length photos and self timer photos, all of which never quite turn out right. I still don't know what I think about Wellington. I don't think cities are something that New Zealand does particularly well. Don't get me wrong I like Wellington and Auckland but when compared to cities in Europe, they're kind of rubbish and there isn't much to do. I still love living in Auckland though, I just wouldn't say it's a holiday destination.

Tomorrow I'm getting the bus over to the south island to Nelson and will travel along the west coast for a little bit before heading over to Christchurch and then back up to Auckland.
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