Glacier climbing and quad biking . .our version of extreme sports!


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Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Franz Josef
June 14th 2009
Published: June 14th 2009
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A 6 hour drive through the most breathtaking scenery of snow capped mountains, glassy lakes and lush greenery of Arthurs Pass and we arrived at Franz Joseph. We booked ourselves into the wonderful Rainforest Retreat campground, fantastically equipped, even sporting a brill outside spa pool. A mere walk from the site and you are bowled over by the view of the glacier in the distance. "We're climbing that tomorrow" said we, and so we did!
We booked a half day glacier walk and climb and besides a sense of achievement at having climbed pretty difficult terrain (come on, the walk around Burrator is our usual effort) we were rewarded with phenomenol views over Franz Joseph.
Feeling enthralled with ourselves, we then decided to get down and dirty and have a go on the quad bikes, battling muddy puddles and rocks to scoot round like maniacs. What a laugh! It was a great day out, with our guide, Chad, being particularly sympathetic to my ear splitting screams and Geen getting her engine waterlogged.
We treated ourselves to dining out twice in a lovely restaurant called The Alice May, run by an english couple, who kept plying us with their homemade donuts. Like we need feeding up, eh?
And so, off we set for another 4 hour drive to Wanaka, where we excelled ourselves in our bravery!


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Tot: 0.047s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 23; dbt: 0.025s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1mb