Franz Josef Glacier - Cool !!!

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Having driven around 8 hours in the rain only to camp up in rain and then to hear that a lightening strike had hit the town we held out little hope of being able to do the helicopter trip onto Franz Josef Glacier that we had booked for the following day. But Mr Sunshine was truly on our side when we woke up in the morning. Having never been in a helicopter we were rather excited and it was not a disappointment, on the contrary it was so smooth, so swift Jon & I would like to use this mode of transport on a regular basis to get around (who said traveling changes people!). We flew over the glacier to get a full view and then landed on the ice. Franz Josef is the fastest moving glacier in the world, up to 10 meters per day, so you could actually sit and watch it move.

We tried wearing crampons on our feet for the first time ever as it would be impossible to walk on this giant ice cube without them, they are a bit strange though. We pootled up, down and through ice caves for around a couple of hours, hopefully the one picture shows the blue ice, visible in this way due to light refraction, we were in complete awe! Quite funny that the guide who we trusted on our trip actually lived in Northfield only a few years ago, it's amazing how far people will go to get away from that place. This has to be the highlight of the NZ trip so far just for the alien like surface of the glacier.

Had to include the possum photo that Jon took, the little fella was on our camp site in the tree. They may look cute, they may look furry but New Zealanders hate them with such a vengeance due to the amount of vegetation they devastate with their eating habits & bird eggs they eat. They have set up museums
(Possom World) to highlight the top ways to kill, make use of and just generally obliterate this creature from their lands, we still think they are better looking than hedgehogs!!!!

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Photos

Honeymooners on ice
This was us wandering around a glacier.

Blue ice caves
Amazing to see, even better to go through !

Glacial landscape
Pretty cool place to walk through.

Possum poking
This little fella was munching in a tree next to our van.

Comments

[Stephen Badham]

10m per day?!?
Are you sure that's right? A glacier moving that fast would be extremely unstable. Maybe they meant 1m per day. Looks amazing though, and that blue is just so incredible isn't it? It's frustrating that you can't seem to capture the luminescence on camera.

[Jonandjacky]

franz josef
yes it is 10 meters per day, we checked with him to make sure he'd said that as well, while we were there part fell off so it is pretty unstable but certainly on the move. Everytime they go up there the layout has changed !

[Claire]

Ah Northfield
Can't believe you go all that way and bump into an ex-Northfielder! looks stunning there. Beats the Grosvenor!!