Wellington to Franz Josef

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Hi everyone,

Wow, time seems to be going so fast now I'm into my last month of travel. I find I'm thinking more and more of things I have to do when I get home - very scary! I went for dinner with Courtney, Laura and Layla again on the Monday night, and then I left Wellington on 15th July to come to South Island, nearly missing the ferry on the way as the hostel staff told me the wrong time for the bus to the terminal!! It was a beautiful day for the crossing of the Cook Strait, brilliant blue sky and the views were really clear. Unfortunately my camera decided to pick that day to break completely (it does this every now and then but usually recovers) so that I couldn't take any photos! Luckily some girls I met on the ferry have emailed me their pics so I have a few. The crossing was mostly calm (although I felt slightly sea sick at one point - I definitely think I have more of a tendency for travel sickness since I've come away!) and took about 3 hours. The ferry arrived into Picton around 12noon and then I had to find the Magic Bus, which is the Backpacker Bus I've decided to use for getting round South Island. I have mixed feelings about the Magic Bus at the moment as it seems like a bit of a party bus, which I didn't really want. Some of the people spend the whole time drinking at night and sleeping during the day, and frankly, I wonder why they didn't stay at home and save money! But most people are nice, and one good thing about the bus is that it stops at interesting places along the way to each place and also for lots of photo stops.

The bus took me from Picton to Nelson on the first day, which isn't a long drive but it is pretty. We stopped along the way for a winetasting at the vineyard that makes "Montana" - the wine was lovely and better still it was all free! Nelson is a small city in the north of South Island and there's not much to do there, but it does have an impressive Art Deco Cathedral - I can't decide whether it's ugly or beautiful! I stayed in a lovely hostel in Nelson called Accents on the Park, although unfortunately I had a dorm full of the loudest snorers ever!! I also started feeling really ill that night as I had a cold coming on, so between the splitting headache, sore throat and snorers I didn't get much sleep. On Wednesday I took the bus into Abel Tasman National Park, which is a tiny National Park right in the NW of South Island. The bus took me to Kaiteriteri, from where I caught a water taxi to Bark Bay, further north up the coast. The weather was pretty good so I managed to have a lovely walk and see lots of picture postcard views, and the fresh air definitely helped the cold. The track is very easy to walk as they get thousands of people walking it in the summer, so it was nice to be there in winter when it was quieter. The walk is mostly through the bush with lots of parts open to the sea, where I could see beautiful golden sand beaches and blue water (it doesn't look as impressive in the photos but trust me, it looked tropical!) I walked from Bark Bay south to Marahau at the park entrance, a total of 21km, so I was feeling quite tired by the end! That night I stayed in Marahau in a place called "The Barn" which was brilliant as the dorm had individual compartments for beds so it was more like your own room than a dorm! And no one snored so I finally got a good night's sleep. In the morning it was raining and my cold was getting worse so I stayed in reading by the warm fire and then got the bus back to Nelson in the afternoon.

On the 18th it was time to rejoin the Magic Bus for the journey to Greymouth, on the west coast. The weather was pretty good again and so we had lots of photo stops. First stop was Hope Saddle, where we could see the beginnings of the Southern Alps which were all snow capped and floating in a sea of mist. It was freezing up there! We continued down to Murchison where a few of us had tea and cake, to the seal colony (very cute seals!) at Cape Foulwind, and then to Punakaiki. This is the site of the famous Pancake Rocks, which are made up of layers of limestone and mudstone which the sea erodes at different rates, making the rocks look like stacks of pancakes (as you can imagine, I was very excited by this!!). Greymouth is not the most exciting place in the world but the hostel I stayed in was brilliant (no bunk beds, towels and hot water bottles provided, a roaring fire and free food from the bakery down the road!!) and perfect for a night in trying to recover from the cold.

On the Saturday we continued down the west coast to Franz Josef, which is a relatively short journey so we arrived by 11.30am. Franz Josef is a tiny village really but is famous for its glacier so tourists flock here in droves. The weather when we left Greymouth was terrible, and although it improved slightly by the time we got to Franz Josef, it still rained all afternoon! I popped down to the shop for some supplies (bumping into Courtney from Wellington whose bus had stopped here!) and didn't venture out again! Some of the people on the bus had booked to do a helicopter ride followed by a hike on the glacier, but the heli-hike was cancelled so they had to make do with a hike near the bottom of the glacier. They got absolutely soaked and some people's cameras broke because the rain got into them! A few of us had booked for the full-day glacier hike the next day so we were dreading what the weather would do, especially as the forecast was for more of the same! But luckily when we woke up it was clear, and there were even patches of blue sky!

The glacier hike is one of the most amazing things I have ever done! It was fantastic to actually be walking on a glacier! We all met at the Glacier Guides headquarters at 8.15am and were given our gear (crampons, rain jackets etc), and then we got the bus up to the Glacier carpark. From there it was a 45 minute walk to the terminal face, where we put our crampons on and set off up the ice!! We were split into small groups and each group had a guide. Ours was called Debbie and was very knowledgeable. She had the hard job of cutting steps into the ice with her ice axe while the rest of the group just waited around talking (got a bit cold after a while!). We saw some amazing things on the hike including loads of blue ice (I always knew glacier ice was blue but I never realised it was that blue!!), ice caves, ice falls and lots of crevasses, some really deep ones and some incredibly narrow ones that we had to squeeze through! We also saw lots of moulins (holes in the ice through which water drains, sometimes all the way to the bottom!) where we could hear the water draining through. We also had kea following us the whole time - these are funny green parrot-likek birds and apparently they follow you and try to nick your food! We were on the ice for just over 5 hours and apparently we walked about 5.5km up the glacier (it's around 11km in length), which I thought was pretty good. I still wanted to go higher though! It started to rain for the last half an hour or so of the walk, but we were all just so grateful we'd had good weather for most of the day that we didn't care! We got back into the village around 4.30pm, and I got straight in the shower to warm up and then sat by the fire for the rest of the evening, raving to people about how good the glacier hike was!!

Today has been a more relaxing day. I walked up to the glacier this morning (can't get enough of all the ice!!) and did a couple of short walks around the area, the Douglas Walk, which led to Peter's Pool, with an amazing reflection of the glacier and mountains, and the Sentinel Rock Walk, up a roche moutonee (sheep-like rock eroded by the glacier) with a fantastic view of the glacier. I'm now sitting in a large red bus on the computer - very random! My cold is pretty much gone now thank goodness. Tomorrow I'm off to Fox Glacier for some more walking and glacial views!!

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