Walking On Ice

After a scintillating 8-hour ride on a lovely, packed Newman’s coach, we arrived in Franz Josef just in time for the rain to fall. After all, NZ’s West Coast is dubbed the “Wet Coast.” The great thing? That was the only rain we saw in Franz Josef for three days…pretty unheard of taking into account that in 2011, FJ saw 265 days of rain and an annual rainfall of 12 meters. Whaaaaaaaat?

We stayed at the Rainforest Retreat, quite a lovely spot aptly named for its surroundings. Our hostel mates, however, were not so impressive. While we had great roommates each night, we learned that the major tour (aka party) buses many young foreigners use for transport dumped their hoards on our doorstep. This meant loud, drunken shouting at night and even louder, early mornings as people slammed doors and prepared for various activities…and that’s why we travel with earplugs.

Anyhoo, hooligans aside, we were not able to book the glacier walk the next day, so we did a lovely hour and a half walk along a nice trail and generally relaxed in the sunshine. Our walk took us through the rainforest to some old sluicing tunnels miners dug/blasted out in order to transport snow melt and glacier water to various places around FJ for gold panning. So fun!

The next day: our glacier walk adventure! Arriving at the glacier, we learned quite a bit about its formation and recent history. For instance, 100 years ago the glacier was visible from the sea, but due to changing weather patterns it is now 25km from the ocean…crazy! While this sounds like bad news, it is entirely possible that the glacier will advance in the future.

The glacier...named after the Austrian Franz Josef because it looked like his beard :)

Once on the ice, we were decked out with crampons – handy spikes that fit over our boots for walking on the ice without slipping/falling/dying. Our guide, Turtle, was 100% Kiwi and a total hoot. He safely maneuvered us through ice tunnels, around crevasses and holes of death while simultaneously keeping us entertained with his antics and foreign swear words he’d learned from other tourists. The day was fantastic! We had an excellent time, and the 6 hours we spent on the ice were some of the greatest we’ve had on our trip so far. Thanks so much to the Franz Josef Glacier Guides!

 

What is going on??? Oh you know, just a crevasse.

After a relaxing hour in the FJ hot pools (entrance fee included in our guiding cost) we treated ourselves to a lovely, large meal at a great café called Full of Beans, and later to a sticky toffee pudding and cider down the road at Alice May’s. Alas…exhaustion set in once again and we found ourselves in bed at 10:30.