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Franz Josef is a small town no bigger than Killybegs that has a huge draw card – the beauty of snow-capped peaks looming over the alpine themed landscapes at ground level with a huge glacier hidden between them.Visiting the glacier was always on my bucket list for NZ, I don’t know why apart from I saw other people’s photos and thought it looked special.
When we arrived we did a bit of research in the iSite and then at Franz Josef Glacier Guides. The girls we met at the Waitomo Caves mentioned that the glacier is only accessible by helicopter and this proved to be true. A couple of months ago the whole terminal face (where the glacier ends) fell off and it is now unsafe to hike from the bottom up through the glacier. The only way it is accessible is by flight. So of course we were booked on for a half day heli hike with hot springs afterwards!
So the next morning we get a lie in and our hike preparation starts at 11.30am. We are introduced to our guide and then it’s time to get suited and booted. John and I already had about 10
layers on – 2 pairs of socks, leggings under tracksuit bottoms for me, three tops and a hoodie. Then on top of this we are kitted out with waterproof trousers, really thick woolly socks, a massive blue coat, hat, gloves and the biggest boots I have ever had the pleasure of donning! We are also given a red bum bag with our crampons inside. For anyone who doesn’t know what these are – they are metal spiky soles that you can attach onto the bottom of your boots to make it possible to walk on all the ice. So we are all ready to go and we cross the street to the helipad!
The helicopter lands with a group of happy looking hikers returning from the glacier and on we hop. It’s a tight enough squeeze but seatbelts on and we are off. It was immediately clear that the pilot was a bit mad and he loved to speed up and tilt in all directions – far more exciting than our helicopter flight in the USA! The journey up was amazing – we flew over the valley that leads to the Tasman Sea with its icy blue waters trickling
from the mountain. We then flew right alongside the mountains to the right hand side of the glacier, passing huge waterfalls that appeared here and there along the rocky mountain face. All of a sudden the glacier was in sight and it was a sight to behold, a sea of white among charcoal peaks with a stunning blue cloud dotted sky. It was spectacular. The size of it became apparent quickly too – tiny dots, like little chocolate flakes in vanilla ice-cream were barely visible ahead. The landing area for the helicopter had others waiting for a ride back down and it was cool to see how small we humans really are!! So we had a nice safe ice landing and waddled carefully towards a bench to get those crampons on!
So, on they went (there is a particular way to do it) and I stood up and automatically started walking like a baby taking their first steps. John of course laughing his head off or taking photos. It didn’t take long to get used to them however and we set off in our group to see what a glacier is really like…..
And it didn’t disappoint. Our
hike took us along different pathways, following our guide who wielded a pick axe to make stairways in the ice or cover water filled holes. The further and longer we walked to more interesting the hike got with narrow pathways, tight crevices, large holes in the ice with different shapes (we even saw one with a heart like shape that someone would pay a fortune for to have at some event). The ice had many different colours in its range, white to light blue to bright blue to a green tinge. It really was stunning. There were designs in some parts of the ice that formed naturally with different colours of ice flowing through. There were caves and tunnels that the smaller people in the group could squeeze through (I was too chicken but John did it no bother). We even got to walk through a crevice with a glacier river flowing through (the guide didn’t seem to have tried this before so there was an added edge). There were a few tight squeezes along some pathways and this was truly fun, trying to climb up with only space for one leg in front of the other – never mind
the space for your torso and bum! We had some good laughs at these points!
Before we knew it, our hike was complete and we were all set for our heli ride back to the village. The ride on the way back was even more thrilling. We took off and close to the edge of the glacier before speeding up to climb along the mountain face before dipping down again along the top. It was exhilarating. When we came to land the pilot did a cool manoeuvre too and we were both buzzing not only from the hike but the helicopter rides too!
That evening we headed to the glacier hot springs. These were conveniently just around the corner from our campsite. We didn’t really know what to expect from them and I was particularly concerned after my failed attempt in Taupo. But when we got in, it was heavenly. There were three pools heated to different temperatures of 36, 38 and 40 degrees Celsius. Of course we started with the lowest and worked our way up. The 40 degreer was nice but for a brief stay! We then worked our way back down to the lowest again.
We spent about 1hour and a half just chilling and relaxing, it wasn’t too busy and it definitely nearly made us sleep! A really nice way to chill after all our recent hikes and treks!
After the hot springs we went for a pint and a pub platter at our campsite bar. Oh and I won a shot on a novelty game of balancing a coin on a lemon in a pint of water. All in all a fantastic day (apart from the pub platter which John insisted on thinking it would be like home but no it really wasn’t, so much seafood. Ok, rant over, ha-ha).
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Steph
non-member comment
Love your blog!
Hi guys. We have just spotted your recent Franz Josef hike blog. It sounds like you had a great time - well done! We would love to share your blog with our readers of our own blog page, and facebook page (this is www.franzjosefglacier.com and Franz Josef Glacier Guides on Facebook. Would you mind if we linked to your blog, and pics? Thanks, and happy travels. Regards, Steph.