Week 4 Part 2

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Dearest Blog (how I love thee),

Woke up to a miserable wet day, stranded at my hostel, so just moped about waiting for the bus to pick me up at 3. Ended up sitting next to Mark and Sarah a couple from Berkshire. They have been travelling for a good few months and were both really friendly. Stopped at several places aimed at extracting more money from weary travellers, the most memorable one being Ross, a now extinct gold mining town. It was such a con, honestly. We had a talk by a woman about the history of the place before she gave us a demonstration on how to pan for gold. We were all really impressed by how much gold she found in her bucket of rocks, that we were all up for parting with some cash and trying it out, until we found out that she had added the gold to her bucket before we got there. Am starting to become a little cynical. The gold boom is still in full swing over here, its just in a different form! Needles to say I did buy a couple of souvenirs.

Arrived in Greymouth a couple of hours later, which is like the wild west of NZ, a dreary grey place which wouldn't have looked out of place with balls of tumble weed rolling through it. Stayed at a very draughty hostel and went on a beer tour at a local brewery and had a bbq for tea. Had a good laugh and played pool, got soaked walking home.

The next day, I had my first bath in a month which was bliss, but I'm sure that the hostel was haunted. When I turned to hang my towel on the back of the door, my clothes ended up in the bath like someone (or something), had just knocked them off the side. V spooky, and a tad annoying. Sat on the bus heading to Franz Josef, in wet knickers and t-shirt (as well as trousers and a jumper obviously).

Franz is a lovely small town on the west coast famous for its glacier. I was really tired when I got there but had already booked myself onto an evening kayaking trip. The guy on the bus had made it sound amazing, reflective black lakes, beautiful mountains, tranquility, sunsets etc. However, the lake is only reflective when it is dead calm, which it wasn't, in fact it was extremely windy at some parts and was exhausting crossing the lake, and I was regretting going. On the other side however, the wind dropped and as we paddled up a river, there were no ripples on the water at all and you could see the most perfect reflections. The water in some of the lake is totally black (tannins leached from the rocks) which is weird but allows you to see the reflections so well. We also saw a white heron which are apparently very rare. Although the clouds obscured some of the mountains, the sunset was still beautiful, and I was so glad that I had made the effort to go.

Today, I climbed a glacier.

I have always hated the word 'awesome' that Kiwis and Aussies say about absolutely everything (I don't know why but I do). But in this case, the only word that adequately describes looking at and walking on a glacier is awesome. In fact the dictionary definition of awesome should be 'Franz Josef Glacier' Its quite hard to describe what it is like, except that it wasn't how I was expecting. It is not smooth on top, and it is not pristine white. In fact it is so undulating on top- sharp peaks 50 feet high and deep crevasses, and if it is not grey from the dirt particles and small rocks and boulders that it carries along, it is blue. The higher up you go, the bluer it is. It was a very tiring day, about 8 hours walking over fairly tough terrain, with crampons on our boots and ice picks, which we didn't actually need to use, but which made us feel very professional indeed. There were a couple of moments where I was quite scared, as I am about as sure footed as a one legged goat and quite scared of heights, but I managed to make it down without slipping over and getting stuck down a crevasse.
My whole body was aching afterwards so I sat in the hot tub at the hostel for a couple of hours until I felt sick from dehydration. Slept like a log.

Lots of love Fogg xxx

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