Advertisement
Published: August 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
We had a bit of a mission to make our way back up the South Island to Franz Josef from Te Anau. The first leg of the trip involved a bus back up to Queenstown. Once there we had some lunch and caught another bus to Wanaka.
The bus trip to Wanaka was really scenic and as we were the only ones on the bus the driver pulled over a few times to let us take pictures. It was also the first place we saw large scale wineries since arriving in New Zealand. The journey itself took about two hours.
Wanaka is in the Central Otago region of New Zealand and is situated at the southern end of Lake Wanaka. As we were there at the start of winter it was gearing up for its hugely busy ski season but was still fairly quiet as the first snow was yet to fall.
After a bite to eat in the hostel we headed for a walk along the beautiful lake. We had a few pints in a cosy Irish bar (Paddys Bar was the only place with customers) in town that evening before calling it a night.
The
The Gang
Tried to use the table as a camera stand. following day we were back on a bus to Franz Josef. We stopped at a fish farm along the way and got chatting to a girl from London called Amira who was also staying at our hostel in Franz Josef.
Franz Josef is a glacier located in Westland National Park on the West Coast of the South Island. It is unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to 240 metres above sea level and into a lush rainforest. It is also pretty special as it is one of the few glaciers in the world that is still growing.
Once in the hostel we arranged a hike on the glacier for the following day and got a few beers in. We took it fairly easy as we had an early start and a long day planned for the next day. After a game of Fact or Crap and scrabble with Amira and we hit the hay.
The weather did not disappoint the next day and although very cold the sun was shining when we checked in for our trip. We were kitted out with jackets, trousers, gloves, hats, socks, boots and crampons (Spikes you
attach to your boots to walk on ice - magic). We even got "stylish" bum bags and ice picks (Good for photos and not much else).
After a quick life waiver signature we were on the bus, for a short drive. We had a nice walk through a rainforest after getting off the bus before we reached the base of the glacier. Our guide was really cool and laid back. Basically the guides on the glacier carry large pick axes and have a set of ice steps zig zagging across the glacier. It's slow going as you can imagine and they constantly maintain and adjust the steps and ropes as its all made of ice and ice changes shape and melts as the day goes on.
The views were spectacular and we spent 6 hours wandering on the ice. We had a really good group and it was a completely new experience walking around on packed ice. It was obviously very cold but we were kept warm by concentrating on maintaining our balance.
After heading back down we made our way back to the village and the hostel. We had a big meal and then headed into
The Landing Bar in town with Amira, Nick (Another London geezer) and another lad for a few beers. As they were up early we called it a night early although both of us were pretty exhausted anyway.
The following day we were woken up by the sounds of thunderous rain on the roof of our room. The rain scuppered our plans of revisiting the glacier and was so heavy we questioned was it worth our while leaving the hostel. We headed to the internet for a good portion of the day and it just kept on raining. We were shocked by just how heavy and how long it rained for. Some people we met were on the glacier that day and we were glad we had went the day before as it would have been a fairly miserable and a tricky experience in the rain.
The evening was spent packing, playing scrabble and trying a few bottles of the local wine which were excellent we can report (Experts that we are).
Next stop Arthur's Pass...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 76; dbt: 0.0781s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb