Blogs from Franz Josef, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 16

Franz Joseph tonight. Had an amazing day - the sitters became the doers. Travelling down from Greymouth to Franz Joseph we stopped at Whataroa for a picnic lunch and 6 of the girls were lucky enough to take the helicopter glacier flight from there as we discovered Franz Joseph was closed because of low cloud. It was awesome and breathtakingly beautiful but I missed out on both the flights and the glacier walk. However, managed the walk up to Franz Joseph glacier and got fantastic photos which I will upload soon. Finding I'm a bit occupied to do a good job of this. Hopefully Queenstown will be a good chance to relax and catch up. I made a huge bowl of Salmon and Broccoli Risotto tonight for some of the students - it's a bit like ... read more

Well I'm a good week or so behind writing this blog - I'm currently in Te Anau with no way to upload any photos so I'll add those later. I've skipped writing about a few places - after crossing the Cook Strait on a ferry between the two islands, we headed down the west coast of the South Island through what has been my favourite part of New Zealand so far: Franz Josef-Wanaka-Queenstown, just off the Fiordland National Park, which has some incredible scenery. We pulled into Franz Josef, a tiny resort for ice climbing and hiking on the Franz Josef glacier. It literally was tiny - the place consists of no more than about 5 buildings on one road - a lodge to book the activities, a bar, youth hostel, supermarket and a pool spa. ... read more

The road to Franz Josef was pretty cool and we arrived just as the mist and the rain set in. The one difference between here and home is they actually know what the weather is doing so we were advised to wait it out for a day until the skies cleared. This basically involved a lot of brandy and backgammon! We did manage to nip out in the rain for a hot chocolate and a muffin and then we were very kindly given a free hot tub for an hour courtesy of spaceships - just what you need when every part of your body is frozen! After a day of being stuck in the van we were grateful to wake up to clear blue skies and made our way up to the glacier. We decided to ... read more

4 August - Franz Josef - Glacier region Leaving Greymouth The heavy rain, thunder and lightening woke us about 5.30am in Greymouth, it sounded like it was never going to stop! We left Greymouth about 8.45am and drove south to Franz Josef, the Glacier Region of the West Coast. It was still raining heavily when we arrived and we managed to check into our hotel early, about 11am. Franz Josef We are staying in the Glenfern Villas, about 3k north of the town. This is the best accommodation on this trip so far (all have been great though). We have a one bedroom wooden chalet style villa so it has a lovely spacious lounge, full kitchen and large bathroom and a few extra luxuries like really good bodywash and shampoos with Manuka Honey in them and ... read more

It was an early start for shuttle bus to the train station to catch the TransAlpine across to Greymouth. There was a steady stream of hail stones falling as we boarded amongst the massed ranks of Japanese, who were fitting the train trip into their 5 day - it’s Thursday so it must be Arthur’s Pass - NZ itinerary. The fact that most were sound asleep within an hour of leaving, suggested that a combination of the itinerary and the early start had been too much for most. The hail had turned to snow by Arthur’s Pass, which made for a pretty pit stop amongst the peaks. The majority of the train jumped ship on to buses at this point - obviously there was no time in the schedule for the delights of Greymouth. The weather ... read more