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!
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