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Published: December 12th 2010
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Have you ever had one of those days when you know you have spent too much money but remain determined not to admit it to anyone, especially yourself! Well, today is that day for the Watts family glacial explorers …
Our arrival at Franz Josef Glacier/town yesterday afternoon gave us plenty of time to confirm details for the helicopter trip/glacier climb that we hoped to do. After an afternoon of sorting stuff out, keeping W occupied, keeping the blog current, food shopping, keeping W occupied, having a good shower … trying to find William, etc – we settled down for the evening as W, E and D cooked supper and P read the weekend paper – bliss!
Perhaps it is the very strictly horizontal regime of sleeping in the hearse (ie downstairs in the Spaceship©) but I have come to really appreciate the Southern Night Sky in the early hours, whenever a midge, sandfly, German flatulence from the camper behind, or Diana’s groans have brought me back awake. I was so excited between 3.00 and 6.00 this morning to gaze out of the tailgate window at a cloud-free sky only to reawaken at 7.00 to the sound of strengthening rain.
The
short drive into the frontier main street of town miraculously saw the clouds lift and the sun start to show. By 10.00am, our scheduled check-in for our helicopter ascent to the top of the glacier, we were a go … and a hefty dent in the bank account later saw us strapped into a most graceful Squirrel helicopter, with headsets on, raring to go. An increase in pitch of the blades and we were up and off, scudding the rainforest, buzzing the vertiginous rock-faces and then circling higher and higher in the valley above a massive expanse of blue glacial ice, cut by a myriad of crevasses. As we cleared the top of the mountains the wind gusted and buffeted us sideways…aaaagh! The pilot’s response was to push the control stick over and drop the helicopter on its side for a few seconds … aaagh! It’s good to have children around, to have to be brave for! A short (8-minute) stop on the snow-field followed with many photo opportunities and a sudden realisation of how exposed you would be stuck up here on your own. The journey back down to the valley floor obviously used the economy of gravity …
ears-a-popping and frantic yawning from Emily especially (Baby Kong faces!) suggested a far less leisurely descent.
A picnic lunch by the river leaving the base of the glacier followed, and William’s assertions that there were boulders floating downstream proved almost right as we watched metre-cubed pieces of rock-hard glacial ice bumping their way downriver.
Our guided walk up on to the glacier started life a little like a ‘how to go hiking’ experience, became a SAGA-escorted walk and then developed into a really exciting and adventurous afternoon. Roughly 50 of us were kitted out down in the valley with boots, crampons, full Gore-tex suits, hats and gloves by following some sort of weird conveyor belt. Oh dear! We ALL got on the coach and we ALL started the hike towards the glacier face together. Oh dear!
Once the groups were thinned apart a bit and we began our climb up the terminal face of the glacier any feeling of being part of a ‘escorted-crocodile’ evaporated and we really started to enjoy the outlook, the colour of the ice up ahead and the increasing coolness as we climbed higher. I was already so proud of Emily (climbing away at the front
of the group without complaint) before we put on our crampons and entered the weird and deceptive landscape of the glacier itself. Both W and E really took to ice walking and did us proud … they were the youngest clients our guide, Becks, had ever had to take up on to the glacier! This was an eerie landscape full of running water, deep blue ice, weird and twisted formations and a sense of slow, but incredibly powerful movement … The walk back to the coach was harder than the ascent and all of our feet were throbbing by the time we finally got to exchange our footwear.
As a bonus, our ticket covered admission to the Glacial Hot Springs and we spent about an hour re-invigorating our aching bits and pieces and befriending an Australian family who seem to be on the same route as us on holiday.
An early night beckoned, and was brought forward even earlier as a rain-front arrived.
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Lisa
non-member comment
WOW!
Didn't they just!!