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Published: March 22nd 2007
From Queenstown we travelled to Fox Glacier village with a short lunch stop in Wanaka. We had booked ourselves onto a full day's glacier hike on the famous Fox Glacier and were hoping for good weather (rain + ice = ground like glass!)
Luckily the day arrived with perfect weather and we breathed a huge sigh of relief! We had signed up for a guided walk so were taken to the glacier by bus with our guide Jeremy. The glacier is not actually very impressive when you first see it. It looks fairly small (the car park was rather far away!) and it looks very dirty! As the glacier has grown and receded over the thousands of years it has been there it has picked up a lot of gravel and debris from the ground hence the dirty appearance!
We had to walk through some forest to actually reach a safe place to get onto the glacier and this was probably more dangerous than walking on the ice! At times we were climbing up ladders and having to walk along very narrow paths holding onto a chain due to the 100 ft drop immediately beside us!!
We
Mini me!
In Wanaka
eventually arrived at the ice and were given crampons to attach to our boots to aid the walking process! The glacier hike then began! It was actually fairly easy to walk on the ice and the day was not as strenuous as climbing Mt. Ruapehu (thankfully!) The views were amazing, the glacier was just so immense, it is only when you are actually on it that you can truly appreciate it's size. We had our lunch sat on the ice (yes we had very cold bottoms!) and then spent about four hours exploring the glacier. Some of the ice formations were very beautiful...a brilliant experience!
Just a quick safety note: there are obviously many potential hazards when walking on a glacier (one guide has never been found after going missing 70 years ago!) but the main rule...don't eat yellow ice!
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