Franz Josef

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To cure our hangovers, we stopped at a place called the Bushman Centre for breakfast - apparently they serve the best possum pies in NZ! Ok, so admittedly we did pass on possum pie and had cooked breakfast instead, after venturing into what I can safely say is the WEIRDEST museum I have ever been to. We were shown a video about deer farming first of all which had men jumping out of helicopters trying to catch deer (very amusing!), then as we wandered around, they kept a couple of possums which were asleep, and a wild pig that one of the guys on our bus had to feed, and random practical jokes - not for the faint-hearted!

We reached Franz Josef just after lunchtime, and were staying in the Rainforest Retreat, which was a very cute backpackers on the edge of Franz Josef (I say on the edge - FJ township consists of two streets so it's rather difficult to get lost, and there's only one ATM in the whole place!) Most of our bus decided to go the whole hog and do the 8-hour full day hike up the glacier, so the next morning we all got kitted up in raincoats, trousers, warm socks and boots etc and then caught the bus to the start of the hike. It took us an hour to reach the bottom of the glacier as we were constantly walking on pebbles and had to climb over a huge rock using ladders as the river had risen in the past week and was too deep to wade through. We then attached our crampons to our boots so that we wouldn't slip on the ice, and started the climb up the front of the glacier. It took us a further hour to actually get onto the ice, but once we were up there, it was absolutely amazing! We were surrounded by blue ice, and our guide had to cut steps into the glacier in most places - it was rather steep in parts, and there was one extremely narrow crevasse that we had to squeeze through after climbing up some very steep steps - Wayne had to pull me through and all I can say is thank goodness I was wearing my raincoat! I found it very difficult trusting that I was not going to slip over on the ice, even though I was wearing crampons, but I gradually got used to it (although I did find I kept trying to use my hands to climb up various parts of the glacier!)

We stopped for lunch about halfway up the glacier - apparently climbing right to the top takes two days and is a mission, so halfway wasn't too bad an effort! We then zig-zagged across the glacier for the rest of the afternoon - there were a lot of scary and extreeemely steep parts of the glacier that just 'fell away' which I tried my best to stay as far away as possible from - but as we neared the end of our hike we reached a 'pool' which one of our group decided he was going to jump into for a swim...Raving mad I think - the water was about one degree and he had to go in in his trousers and boots otherwise he wouldn't have been able to climb out again! The walk back to the bottom of the glacier and back to the bus was the worst part, and we all slept well that night and woke with aching muscles the next day! However, it was a great experience - definitely the best thing I've done so far in NZ, and definitely something I would recommend!

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Photos

Cool ice tunnel
NB - Rhino had to mark how far we could go with a piece of ice - there was a very sheer drop on the other side of this!

This bit was sooo steep!
Plus water rained down on you if you stood at the bottom...(hence why I am squinting!)

Comments

[Chris]

Awesome glacier isn't it!
This was one of my fave things we did in New Zealand. We did the Heli hike up and some walking around the bottom ourselves, but it's just such an amazing thing walking on the ice isn't it! Plus when u get up high there's is just silence and the occasional helicopter!! Brilliant fun. Glad u enjoyed it! xx

[nic]

wow!
now this is the kinda thing i wana do, looks amazing! sitll waiting for pics of ur skydive tho! and next time u stay newhere send me ur number cos i think we may have finally got our fone sorted! wawa! xx