Glacier Climbing and Snow Mountains on the West Coast


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Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Franz Josef
October 23rd 2010
Published: October 26th 2010
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After leaving the beautiful Abel Tasman, a little sad we couldn’t stay a few days longer, the first of the places we stopped at was a small town called Murchison about 2 hours from Motueka, and we hadn’t originally planned to stop here but it was lunch time and we were hungry, plus it would have taken another 2 hours at least to get to the town of Westport where we originally wanted to stop for lunch and by then it would have been quite late in the afternoon.
So we stopped in Murchison, which was a nice enough town but didn’t have too much to see, and at a small place had freshly caught fish and chips outside in the sun, before moving on towards Westport. When we got near to Westport, Vic read in a guide book that there was a seal colony just a few miles (22) from the town centre, so instead of going through Westport (which seemed nice but we were getting pushed for time so gave it a miss as it wasn’t a must see), we went straight to the seal colony at Cape Foulwind, on the tip of the west coast, as we would much rather have seen the seals than another town.

We parked up and walked the 15 minutes along a man made walk way suspended above the sea, which was really choppy even though it was sunny because of the wind picking up, hence the name Captain Cook gave this area (foulwind), until we came to the part which overlooked the colony. At first it didn’t seem like there were many seals, but after a closer look we could see there were dozens which blended in with the rocks which is why we couldn’t see them at first. There were big ones and babies on the rocks and also bobbing around in the sea, and surprisingly they weren’t making much noise but they were lovely to see in their natural habitat.

After walking back to the van we carried on our journey towards the town of Greymouth, which is on the way to FJ, but not before stopping on route to see the famous pancake rocks and blowholes. These rocks jutt out of the sea and got their name because all the erosion to them over the years which has made several ridges in the rocks and now they look like stacks of pancakes...apparently! We completed the round loop in about 45 minutes and then continued to Greymouth, another (medium sized) non descript town about 2 hours further down the west coast.
It wasn’t as grey as the name suggests, but we just made a quick stop for petrol and coffee (plus a cake for Vic) before continuing to Franz Josef which was still another 4 hours away, and by this point it was past 5.30pm and we didn’t want to get to FJ too late as we knew we had an early start for our glacier climb the next morning so we were debating parking up but Scott insisted on putting his foot down and trying to make it within 3. On the drive to FJ from Greymouth we caught our first glimpse of the snow capped mountains that made the town famous, which were incredible and we can imagine in winter they would be covered in snow and great for skiing. Scott made brilliant time with the driving (without getting any speeding fines ahem), and we arrived in the small town of FJ just after 8pm.

As we had paid for a site for the van for the past 2 nights we wanted to try and get a free place to park for the night in FJ, so had a drive around the small town before finding a space in a hostel car pack which seemed fine for the night and popping to a busy diner type restaurant for a dinner (we wanted to eat out as we had cooked for the last 2 nights aswell) of steak burger and chips-Scott and chicken pasta-Vic (we have put back on all the weight we lost being ill in Peru !) before heading to the van to sleep, exhausted from our long day of driving but excited for our glacier climb the next morning.

We set our alarm for just gone 7, in order to check in for our glacier climb/briefing and to enable us to eat a decent breakfast to give us energy for our 4 ½ hour trek. After a safety briefing on the potential dangers (avalanche’s, ice slides, flash floods - etc) we got kitted out in our gear (thermals, hats, gloves, boots and crampons - spike attachments to enable us to walk on the ice) we set off in our minivan.
The drive was only a short 10 minute ride from the office and we soon set off along the trak which would lead us to the terminal face of the mountain/glacier. We passed several small waterfalls where the snow had recently been melting and learnt that the glaciers were retreating at a rapid rate of around 1-5 meters a week because of warming and the high pressure in the area and without this they would be one of the highest mountain ranges in the world.
Anyways, after reaching the terminal face (which is where the public must stop) we climbed a very steep gravel track for around 30 minutes before reaching the start of the ice - this is where we were briefed again and given instructions on how to attach the crampons to our boots, as well as being split into three groups of 12 depending on fitness and climbing experience. Vic’s wanted to go into the middle group (not too fast, not too slow) but Scott being Scott and being competitive insisted that we were now experienced ‘mountaineers’ after the Inca Trail (?!?!?!?) so volunteered us to be the first on the ice in the first group. We started our walk on the ice, following the guide and within moments, Scott was on his backside and Vic’s was struggling at the back - Experienced mountain climbers we are not, but the show had to go on. So we persisted up hill and reached our first ice cave, which was basically a 2ft by 4ft small tunnel which we had to crawl/crab step through to get to the other side - Vic’s hated the initial thought of this as she hates small spaces, but once again proved she is willing to give everything a try and as she has been so brave this trip, went through the gap before Scott and loved it, but not before stopping inside for a quick photo. We continued to climb, with our guide constantly re-calving the steps as they continuously melt, passing several more caves and crevices until reaching our summit for the day. We had a quick snack and had the pleasure to see a rare alpine parrot (which are now close to extinction) before descending and heading back to base.

By the time we got back, we were both exhausted and freezing so we decided to treat ourselves and had freshly cooked wood-oven pizza and warming up our feet on the open coal fire before jumping in our van and setting off further south on the 5 hour drive to Queenstown . . .



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