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We set out from Wanaka in pouring down rain, aiming for the West Coast. The West Coast is apparently the wettest place in New Zealand, so we were pleasantly suprised to pass over the mountain range and descend into glorious sunshine! The drive up the coast was pretty spectacular, it's the Tasman Sea which is one of the roughest seas in the world, so all along you have massive crashing waves which look amazing. We made a couple of stops on the way, first being Ship Creek Beach, a very isolated beach where a shipwreck washed up 100 years ago, having sunk near Australia and been dragged over by currents. Our second stop was the lookout at Knights Point, gorgeous views of the coast stretching in both directions.
After a couple more hours in the car we made it to the town of Fox Glacier, home to.....the Fox Glacier! We stopped at Lake Matheson and went for a walk around the circuit. From the far end of the lake you can see Mount Cook, and it's reflection in the lake. It was a little too windy for the full relfection when we were there but the view was still very
Knights Point
Very pretty view impressive, and it was a lovely walk after being on the road for so many hours. With our excerise done for the day we headed for the town of Franz Josef, home of.....the Franz Josef Glacier! Where we were planning to camp for the night. We found a campsite called Rainforest retreat which was quite bizarre but very nice. It was an actual patch of rainforest, with lots of scandinavian style buldings, and hidden right at the back spaces for campervans. it was extremely dark and on more than one occasion rich ended up walking into hedges rather than down walkways....very amusing.
Next day we went and booked a guided hike to the glacier, the only way you can get close to the ice itself. Once that was out of the way we headed back to Fox Glacier, where you can walk from the car park to the terminal face of the actual glacier for a great view. It was an interesting walk involving several river crossings (we're very thankful we invested in waterproof shoes) but the views of the glacier at the end were worth it. Seeing the Fox glacier up close made us start to get very
Lake Matheson
It's mount cook in the background.... excited about spending a day on the Franz Josef the next day. We headed back to our campsite for an early night in preparation for the big day.
Up early and straight off to sign in for our hike, we found that we were with 50 other people also heading out on to the Franz Josef glacier that day. The most people we've seen in New Zealand so far! After an hour spent getting kitted out with waterproof trousers, raincoats, hats, gloves, socks, boots and crampons we set off for the glacier itself. Unlike the fox glacier which is easily accessible, the Franz Josef is 3km from the nearest car park, so before we even set foot on the ice we had to scramble across 3kms of loose rubble and streams. What a warm up! When we made it to the terminal face we were divided down into smaller groups based on ability (we went straight to the lowest...the glacier is steeeeeep). Once with our guides, we were shown how to fit crampons to our boots, had a little practise walking in them. It's very strange walking with an inch of metal spikes sticking of the sole of your
shoe. Good fun though.
Once we were all set up, we headed off to start our climb up the face of the glacier. The guides go first and cut out steps in the ice with a pick as they go, making a safer route for the group to follow. This is fun as anyone stood near the guide gets showered in ice cubes all the way up, quite refreshing. The guides also fix handlines to the ice in particularly steep places to give everyone something to hold onto. After about 45minutes of climbing we reached the top of the terminal face, and were surrounded by white ice rather than the ice covered in rocks that you get lower down. It was an amazing view from where we were. That wasn't it though...our guide told us we would be climbing much higher to where the ice is blue because it's untouched. We climbed a bit further, then stopped for lunch. Lunch on a glacier is fun! Things slide away, but it's useful for chilling your drinks.
Meal break over we started climbing again. The terrain was different at this point and we were going up and down waves rather
Fox Glacier
Big big piece of ice than just climbing steps. We were taught a couple of different ways of climbing depending on the terrain and how steep it is, you really have to concentrate on where you are putting your feet! And when you're on hard ice you have to take all your aggression out by stamping your feet really hard to make sure your crampons grip in and you don't slide off. It was in this second stage of the walk that our guide took us to some ice caves, they're absolutely amazing! We walked and climbed through a couple, some of them are quite small, you can only go through one at a time and you have to mind your head as it hurts a lot if you hit it on solid ice. Our guide was telling us about glacier formations as we went, part of their job is to constantly be on the look out for falling rock and ice, and holes in the ice that drop down 200m which can appear in a matter of days. Apparently the Franz Josef glacier can move at up to 5m a day when it's at it's fastest! It's unbelieveable. There are caves on the hikes
Franz Josef Glacier
On the way to our hike.... that guides can take you through that will be out of bounds the next week as the formation changes so much.
After making our way up for around 3 hours, it was time to start our descent. I thought going up would be the hard part, but turns out that was easy compared to climbing down! Ice is slippy, and the steps are steep so you have to be really careful. On our way down we got to see a couple more ice caves, and walk through some tunnels and crevaces which are suprisingly narrow. It only took us an hour and a half to get down, but by the time we reached the bottom it felt like longer, it was hard work! We then had the 3km walk back to the bus to strech our legs out. It was an absolutely fantastic experience, we both loved having an entire day out on the ice, although the pain the next day made me think once is definitely enough!
Once we had got our legs moving the next morning, we set off to drive up the west coast aiming for the Nelson area. Within an hour of setting off
Ready for action
Kitted out to tackle the glacier we got a good taste of the weather the west coast is notorious for....it was black sky, lightening, hale, torrential rain, you name it we saw it! Made the drive interesting.....We made a few stops on the way, including a stop at the Pancake Rocks, some limestone rock formations that look like stacks of pancakes. They are quite odd to look at, and quite impressive. We couldn't hang around for long though as gale force winds and driving rain aren't much fun to sight see in! With the weather against us, we battled on inland. Our next stop on the route was the Buller Gorge swingbridge, the longest swingbridge in New Zealand which you can walk over and back again. It's very high and very narrow and swings A LOT. We didn't really give it much thought until we were half way across when it suddenly dawned on us both how scary it was! Extreme activity out of the way for the day we were back on the road and eventually made it all the way to Nelson, in the hope that "New Zealands Sunshine Capital" would offer us some respite from the weather. We'll have to see.....
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