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Published: June 23rd 2008
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Panoramic View: At The Top Of Fox Glacier Walk To The Franz Josef Terminal Face
It was raining when we woke up at our campsite at Franz Josef. The whole area was grey and shrouded in fog so we wondered what kind of effect this would have on our plans as we hoped to do some walking today. After the usual breakfast, dishes and cleaning up, we headed down the road to the visitors centre to have a look about at the activities available to us in this area. A lot of places were offering helicopter flights (expensive) or alternatively guided walks on the glaciers of varying length. Undecided on what to do, we decided just to do some walking on our own to the viewpoints of the glaciers for today.
Driving to the car park, we got out and trudged about in the rain with our full get-up on to provide protection from the elements. We were still wet and cold. It was weird to see signs detailing information on where the glacier had been years before as it turns out these glaciers move fast; around 10 times faster than any other glaciers in the world. They're advancing
again (having retreated for several hundred years up to 1985) at an astonishing rate of around a metre a week, although this can sometimes be up to 5! It was only 15,000 years ago they were at the sea itself, which is a good distance away and who knows where this new advance will take it. If global warming stays at bay, we could be saying goodbye to the townships in a few hundred years.
After walking to the initial lookout point, we were faced with a barrier saying that due to the heavy rainfall, the walk to the front of the glacier was not advised as areas were flooded. This didn't faze us, and we hopped over the barriers to where other tourists were, only to be faced with a small river to cross. With some hopping over stones for footpaths, we made it across, although our feet did become submerged on a number of occasions. No one else seemed to want to cross but we trudged onwards towards the glacier face unperturbed.
As we got nearer, we realised there were a lot more rivers, stones and ice blocks to navigate which proved to be quite fun.
Our feet and trousers ended up drenched by the time we reached the terminal face, although the rain had let up a bit by now. With warnings of extreme danger, we decided not to venture to the ice itself, although the guided tours went up their set paths. The glacier is known for flash flooding, ice breakage and slippage so it was best not to get too close.
The terminal face itself is the ugliest part of the glacier. It's where all the the debris and valley dirt ends up due to the basic force of gravity and is also generally where the ice melts. The glacier will advance if the snowfall accumulation on the top part is greater than the ice melting and will retreat if the ice melting is faster. Or at least appear to retreat as internally, a glacier is always pushing forward. The terminal face wasn't eye catching but the clouds parted enough for us to see right the way up the valley the glacier created and glimpse the purer, whiter parts of it. It really doesn't look like we'd expected it as for some reason; in Geography lessons at school we'd imagined a glacier
to be a huge block of nicely polished ice and snow grinding through the mountains. It's far rockier, dirtier and pit-filled than that though.
After admiring, we made our way back through the creeks getting wetter and noticing some of them had basically become rapids from the rain. The waterfalls were impressive though due to the same reason.
Walk To Fox Glacier
Jumping in the car, we journeyed back on the twisted 20km road to Fox Glacier. The town of Fox Glacier is a bit nicer and quieter than Franz Josef, which is funnily enough the same way we felt about the glacier comparison too. Heading down an unsealed road, we got to the Fox Glacier visitor park which had a shorter trek to the terminal face than Franz Josef. It was also a lot quieter, because although Fox is the longer glacier, Franz Josef is the widest and steepest. Being slightly more northern means that more tourists stop their first too making it the busier place, but personally, we felt Fox was a lot nicer.
The walk to the terminal face was not only shorter, but had less waterfall streams to cross and a bit
Glacier Ice
Some of the debris in the valley. nicer. The lookout point was a lot closer to the terminal face and due to the sky being clearer, we could see more up the valley. It was nice enough, but we really felt we wanted to get a bit closer...
We had dinner at a local "saloon", which meant it was a Wild West styled pub. The food was delicious and the log fire very welcoming. Afterwards, we headed to Lake Matheson for a walk, which on a clear day can provide the postcard perfect relfections of the Southern Alps and Mount Cook in the lake (we were now on the other side of Mount Cook now). Alas, it was not to be, the clouds proved too much. We opted to stay at the Fox Glacier campsite for the night and try to decide if we wanted to do any glacier related activity for the next day.
Breathtaking Scenery
Getting up earlier than usual, we headed to a booking office in Fox Glacier to possibly do a half day guided walk. On the good news front, the sky was completely clear and blue with the sun shining on the ice and mountain tops. This was going
Waterfall En Route To Glacier
There were a lot more than normal due to the rain. to be a good day for the glaciers. The only problem we had with the walks though was, despite the 4 hour walking time, you never really progressed far on the glacier itself. Certainly not past the dirtier parts. After much deliberation, we took the plunge and booked the Helicopter Scenic Flight of the glaciers. It was expensive but we felt it would be worth it and it really is a once in a life time thing.
It was definitely worth it and would easily rank in the top 5 things we've done on this gargantuan trip. The helicopter itself seemed to be very small (smaller than we expected anyway) but the feeling of taking off was amazing and unlike any other. The views up proved to be great and that was before we even reached the glaciers. It flew firstly to the Franz Josef glacier and followed it up to the peak where it joined several other glaciers and we were deep in the Mount Cook mountain ranges. It then continued to Mount Cook itself and then to Tasman glacier (check earlier blog) and finally to Fox Glacier where we landed near the top. Wandering around on this
Rivers
Aggravated by rain, we had to cross through a lot of water to get to the glacier. practically untouched ice was mesmerising and standing there felt absolutely stupendous. There was just us, the pilot and another couple doing it so we had all this ice/snow to ourselves. It was certainly lived up to our imaginary image of glaciers and the weather couldn't have been better. It had in fact been the first flight the company had done in 5 days due to weather problems.
After being amazed for a while, we got back in the helicopter and flew down over the glacier and back to landing having been up for an hour including the ice landing. One experience we won't be forgetting any time soon.
West Coast Drive
Our petrol situation was dire so we headed to the Franz Josef petrol station for a shock. There has been a fuel crisis on in New Zealand (and pretty much everywhere else from what I can gather) and when we arrived petrol prices were $2.00 a litre. This had gone up significantly, but the petrol stations here had it for $2.33 a litre! We couldn't believe it and only topped up a wee bit to maybe see if it was cheaper further north. Fortunately, when we
Franz Josef Glacier
From viewpoint, it was still very misty and raining at this time. stopped in Hokitika, the prices were more reasonable (but still exorbitant) and we had lunch.
Heading back on the road, we admired the scenery up the coast until we turned off at Greymouth onto a more mountainous and twisty road and then being stuck behind heavy goods vehicles. Eventually by dinner, we pulled up into Hanmer Springs which was our next stop where we found a campsite to settle down for the night.
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