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Published: February 13th 2011
finally we arrived in Franz josepth Glacier region, the village itself is very small and dominated by businesses offering guiding up onto the glacier or to have a helicopter ride and land higher up on the glacier. This are all business offering the best expieriences money can buy.
we parked the car, i chose to park the car on the only available parking that was on the opposite side of the road. I was immediatley told off by the police for parking facing the wrong way as it may confuse tourists as to which direction to drive?????
We collected some info on the glacier and set off walking to it. Obviously carrying all the survival equipment listed on the info sheet. While we were walking through the bush (again) and then we set our eyes on it..............people walking the other way, sandals, painted toe nails, string vests, this is usually a bad sign if you want a bit of a challenge.
our dream of getting into the wild and visiting a glacial valley had become a circus. we walked along the valley bottom passing various people ranging from the age of 15 to 105 on a well contructed wheel chair
path to the bottom of the glacier, where we where stopped in our tracks by a sign 100m away that you where not allowed to go any further.
Now this sign and fence is the biggest eyesaw i ever did see, it is a 2 meter picture of someone reasembling a cross between crocadile dundee and the crocadile hunter he is dressed in khaki shorts, shirt, and very gay cowboy hat, clothes that are not listed on the must bring clothing list. also a big yellow wire fence stopped you going any further up the mountain. there was a clear path used by the guides on the right hand side which was easy to cross, and led up to; what would have been a fine view. However without paying $150 you could not go any further, how the hell can they stop you going into the mountains without paying for a lame walk half way up the hill and back....arrghhhhh we are sick of this....tomorrow would be different. In Scotland you can go to more dangerous wilder places free of charge.
we called into the info centre and i vented our anger on the poor girl behind the counter,
she then said that there was an old track (here we go again, we thought, did captain cook once maybe hide his ship up there?) This old track was very steep, challenging and a little dangerous..............whatever
We slept in a brand new motor lodge that night, as we had not showered for 5 days and my armpits where bordering on biologically weaponary.. We prepared breakfast in the site kitchen and had a good laugh at the dim wits that where preparing the days food and drink, one old half wit spent 30 minutes boiling tea in a pan, then scooping it out with a cup into a plastic bottle......end result= melted plastic bottle and burnt fingers, nice.
His friend then went on to eat 4 slices of bread and 2 meat pies, all at 6am....legend.
so we drove up and down looking for this legendary track, actually we drove past the over grown sign about 3 times...a good omen!!!
We set off through steep bush, having to climb up tree roots and fight our way through vines, this was more like it, felt we where starring in the movie Raiders of the lost arc.......
at one point we
where being followed by a group of small birds, getting as close as 1 metre away from us and followoing us for around an hour....wierd! jungle book experience.
Once out of the bush, we noticed the mountain bird called Kea, i had to calm Ilonas enthusiasm as she thought i said "Ikea" but the bird was red and green not the trade mark blue and yellow.....
We walked along the alpine terrain to a fantastic view point, this area is not to publicised, therefore the going is very tough but the reward on a clear day is the fantastic view, finally we had a killer workout and a fine view, finally we are winners. we had covered a verticle altitude of 1150 metres in 2hrs40min, not bad going considering the terrain.
We sat a while and as the clouds rolled in i proposed to Ilona, quite a fitting time, with all the effort and the beautiful view, i had waited all this time in NZ for the right time.
We put on our rings and started the long, long descent. Very thirsty as we only had 2 litres of water between us.
It was trecherous down climbing over
thick tree roots, with about 300m descent to go we passed a young couple, they had turned round without reaching the top, to be honest the girl looked more at home reading gossip magazines than clambering over the muddy tree roots, they are probably still on there way down now. i think they should have opted for the painted toe nail route that we had done the day before.........
so finally we arrived to the car, had delicious fish and chips and drove to Hokitika, where we camped at a DOC campsite.
these campsites have toilets, and a sink and you are allowed to park/camp over night for the sum of $6 dollars each. You have to put this payment in an envolope and pop it in a honesty box.
Well i am from Middlesbrough and dont mind pushing my luck, that was untill the park ranger turned up and we made our poor excuses and reluctantly dropped the money into the box!!!!
Next day we got hold of a "map" from the tourist info centre, the word map is an overstatement as it is actually a childs drawing and definatly not to scale.
We know this for certain
surprise surprise!
Richard almost punched the paper man! i had to use my calmest voice to stop him!as we drove 60 k to see a massive gorge and massive scary swing bridge, the picture on the drawing was actually bigger than the one in reality
we fell for it again..................
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Helene, Phil, BobCat, DesDog,JuliaPig
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