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Published: April 11th 2010
Ice ice baby!
The next morning after our last bit of internetting and some lunch by the beach (it was too bloody cold to go outside and take pictures I’m afraid) we headed off making our way to Franz Josef. It wasn’t far and as we approached from the north we could start to make out the glacier that enters into the end of the town. It was immense even from where we were driving, and I started to get really excited. I’d only ever seen pictures of the ice coming into the valley, I had no sense of scale previously but now I could see how amazing it was. The weather was pretty nice so we were confident about our trip the next day (we had it booked for the morning) so relaxed by spending what was left of the day doing some local walks around and up to the glacier terminal itself. As we started the walk, we didn’t think the glacier looked that far away but after an hours walking we were only just at the base of it. It was immense and you could feel the temperature difference being this close. We took loads of
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Its massive and thats only the start of it!!photos but still couldn’t take in the actual size of it all - until Nath took a zoomed in film of people climbing far up on it and how small they were - wow - see for yourself. There where roped off areas and signs everywhere about not passing the boundaries due to ice falls but still some idiots were going beyond to take shots. I felt bad for wishing them hurt but I just wanted them to be taught the lesson that the signs weren’t just for other people - pricks!!
On our way back we collected our next lot of hitch hikers, a bunch of lads a little bit older than drinking age that needed to get back to their hostel by a certain time so they could get a free dinner. Apparently their walk had taken longer than they planed and they all looked knackered. We dropped them off in town and popped to the heli hike desk to check the weather was still looking good for our hike the next morning. The fairly unhelpful and abrupt lady said we would just have to ring in the morning, as the weather was a little unpredictable. What
is it with the tourist industry here, do they just get a lot of stupid questions or do they hate their jobs!! We hadn’t asked her to predict whether the flight would go the next day, even we had the insight to guess she wasn’t psychic, we just wanted to get her opinion on the general weather for the next 24 hours. Anyway, turned out the weather seemed to be looking good as promised but there was a chance the afternoon looked better. We were then unsure whether to keep our original time or not, but in the end we decided to change from the morning to the afternoon trip, thinking the any bad weather should have cleared by the afternoon. So very excited (and a little nervous) we went to bed and tried to get to sleep - it was like Xmas eve or something, well for Mandy anyway.
Next morning the sun was shining through the van and we were beginning to think the morning would have been nice after all, but hey if this trend continued the weather would be even better by the afternoon. So to keep ourselves entertained (as bar glacier type stuff there
really isn’t anything else here) we went of to Lake Matheson, which was meant to be very reflective and famous for its views of the mountain range on postcards. The drive there was fairly long as although distance wise it wasn’t far, the roads were all very windy and it took us ages to get round them all. We got to the lake and the weather was lovely, the walk round the lake seemed like it was a great idea as we had a few hours to burn, so we headed off to walk the perimeter of it. Unfortunately by the time we got to the viewing areas there was just about enough wind to cause ripples in the water, so we really only got reflections of some near by bushes. What was worse was as we were heading back to the glacier it had started to cloud over, but we were trying to stay optimistic, but inside I think we were both wondering whether moving our flight had been the right thing to do. Back at the heli-hike desk we got all checked in and dressed in the warm gear they provide. Huge boots, extra thick socks (2 pairs
for Nath’s skinny feet), waterproof jackets and crampons! We didn’t put the crampons on till we hit the ice, but we did get little red bum bags to carry them in until we needed them. The whole process takes ages so although you book one time you don’t actually go up in the air for at least 45 mins after this. It was sunny in places but still really cloudy but we had our fingers crossed.
By the time we made our way out to the helicopter pad I was more nervous than worried about the weather, it had finally hit me that we were about to go up in a helicopter - something I thought I would never do. We watched the first group go up in front of us, so I was left with even more time to worry about the flight. Finally it was our turn, and I got put right up front next to the pilot so had a clear view out the front. It was really loud and I sat there gripping onto Nath and hoping this wouldn’t be the last thing we did…and we were off…… whhooooooppppeeeeeeeeeeee - it was bloody amazing!!!! I
loved every minute of it. As we went up I gasped and put my hand over my mouth, the pilot looking over nervously, I think he thought I was gonna spew. When we turned it felt so weird in my inner ear, but I think the best bits were flying over the top one of the mountain ridges and seeing the ground disappear below us into a valley, and also when we flew right over the very top of the glacier and broke out into the bright sunshine and pure white snow. It was only a short flight up but the pilot gave us a little tour over the glacier and some commentary through the head phones we all had to wear. All too soon we had landed and I must admit as the helicopter flew away form us I was a little disappointed as I thought we were going to be dropped off right at the top of the glacier on the snow. Instead we had landed on the ice a lot further down.
I was still so excited (even with the slight snow landing disappointment) and Nath was happy that I had loved the flight so much.
We got our crampons on and the helicopter flew off leaving us with the guide who had been up on the glacier all day doing 4 or 5 guides so far. He was in shorts for pity sake, and we were there shivering in our thermals. As the helicopter had flown off a huge piece of glacier ice fell form a step in the glacier further up, unfortunately Nath was busy filing the helicopter fly away so missed it - it was amazing, the noise and the rumble, quite scary really but it was much further up and miles away from us. (Maybe that’s why they didn’t drop us off at the top?!?!)
The first things we noticed was that although we knew the glacier was huge it was really hard to tell how big because there is nothing up there to give you a sense of scale. Anyway with crampons on we headed off behind the guide who stopped every now and then to tell us interesting facts about the glacier. One couple who had flown in with us (retired couple) were quite nervous and most of their questions were based on our probability of dying (which made
me think of mum!!). Nath and I were taking the ice walking in our stride although others found walking in crampons a little more tricky. You had to take steps like you meant it and keep you feet a little wider apart, or as Nath put it “Walk like you shit yourself”.
Following the guide who every now and then would use his pick axe to make some steps for us, we felt a bit like dwarfs!! We climbed for a good couple of hours, with the highlights being walking through ice caves which were just amazing to touch, so blue and shiny. At one point the group had moved ahead of us and were just at the top on one ice wall when they said wow can you see the ice falling. They were watching more ice crumble from the walls, which Nath and I could feel and hear but not see as the selfish bastards just stood there and didn’t move over. I said out loud, no we cant see anything to which the group finally realised they weren’t fucking windows and moved out the way, just in time for it to finish!! Some people……
It
was over so soon, but was the most amazing thing, and I’m so glad we did it. The flight back was much shorter this time (about 4 mins in total) but I enjoyed it none the less and decided from that point on we should save our money to spend on more flights and not stupid museums etc. The weather had been a bit crap to start and it was almost cancelled but it had turned out so sunny in the end we were glad we went in the afternoon. The only problem we had now is we were a half day behind getting to our next destination, which was gonna take hours to get to. We had the Haast pass to drive through which is a good 3 hours drive through mountains and valleys, there was no way at this time in the early evening we were gonna make it. So we decided to drive off and stop as soon as we found a place to pull over to freedom camp.
All along the roads we saw sign after sign about “say no to 1080” or “if you drink the water you’re an idiot”, which was a bit
worrying as we had been drinking it as no one had said not to. (Apparently the locals were not too happy about the 1080 poison which was being used to control possums in the area) The sun was really shining into the evening now, and we stopped off at the beach side to take photos as there were piles of stones and wood made into shapes all along the length of the beach. It was really weird; people had left little messages on stones and pieces of wood, about being here on a certain date or a funny saying. My favourite was “this is for the 1000 dead possums we’ve passed on our journey RIP my little friends”. Just as we were enjoying these funny messages and wondering whether we should stop here for the night Nath yelled sand flies!!! They were everywhere and had snuck up on us. I had one tiny bit of ankle showing which they were feasting on so we ran back into the van and legged it. Only thing was though we had left the doors open as we were looking around so now had about 30 visitors inside with us. The next 30 mins
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Stupid man that passed the warning barriers - helped us with scale though for this shot -thanks dick head was a mad drive and fly squashing dance along the road. It took ages to get them all and not before another one had a go at my hand - the bastards I had done so well!!! (Elton’s windows looked a right state!)
We were finally fly free after a bout half hours drive but we were still a little on edge, why oh why hadn’t someone left a note on one of these stones about the masses of flies and run for your life or something!! It was now getting quite late and we hadn’t even started on the Haast pass so settled for the night in a DOC site that we found accidentally as it seemed the beaches were out!! We had heard about the huge mount of flies in this region but were thinking we’d hardly seen any so they must have been exaggerating, turns out not so……
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Donna
non-member comment
Glad to see
Glad to see you're still playing the lying down game 4 months later!! Always makes me laugh at the weird places you choose. D.x