Blogs from Franz Josef, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 45

Managed to somehow turn off my alarm the one mornng I really needed it. However, was obviously on alert for the glacier and made it up in loads of time. Afer we got suited up with our books, spikes, coat, gloves etc we got the bus to the bottom of Franz Joesf. It takes about 40 minutes walking to get to the exact bottom of the glacier, crossing by all these signs saying go no further, danger and other reassuring warnings!! A river runs under the glacier, it burst through due to really heavy rainfall in 98/99 but generally just rushes out the bottom and flows by as you walk along. As you get closer to the glacier a ladder and rope helo you haul yourself up to the first level. From there we made our ... read more

Our heliride got upgraded to a twin ride to the Fox and Franz Josef Glacier as we sat waiting to be brought to the helicopter!! Our conspicious green stickers were whipped off us and needless to say we were delighted and agreed not to tell the other passangers how much we paid....hmmm, hard deal! A little red helicopter flew down to pick us up and we cruised first over Franz Josef and then over to land on Fox on the neve . We had a birdseye view of these amazing formations that apart from a glacier in Argentina a completely unique - glacier leading to rainforest and then to the sea. As we landed we hopped onto this pristine snow and into a landscape of towering cliffs and startling white icy covering of snow. Course the ... read more

Well hello everybody! Can I firstly say "back-off!" to all those peole pressuring me for a new blog. My creative mind is stifled by the pressure (doesn't take much admittedly!) and its difficult to keep you all updated when we are busy trying to enjoy ourselves!!! Anyway, we are down in chilly Queenstown at the moment, the world's capital for extreme sports! And with that in mind...we haven't done any of them!! I'd like to blame it solely on having a distinct lack of cash, but in reality I dont think either of us have got the cojones! Saying that though, we don't wish to be outdone, and over the last few weeks, we have come up with our own selection of 'Adrenalin-pumping' activities: 1. Extreme campervan toilet emptying. (involves emptying the campers 'pooper' in just ... read more

So the only thing I wanted to do was go walk on a glacier for my birthday, nothing too big right?! Well according to mother nature and karma it just wasen't in the cards this year. Nathan and I took off from Canterbury, bright-sunny-warm-perfect, and headed to the west coast, as soon as we started heading over Arthur's Pass and through the Southern Alps, the weather turned nasty. Big, black, gross looking clouds holding tons of water just waiting to drop their load on us. And drop it did, my the time we made it to the Rainforest Hostel i was about in tears, how could it be raining...AGAIN! Trying to get me to cheer up, we sat in the hot tub under the storm with someother travelers from Oz, the US and Chili. Actally had ... read more

Franz Josef! Today we took an 8 hour guided hike of the Franz Josef Glacier. It was a rough 8 hours too but the old boys were up to the task! The Glacier itself is huge and in a day you can only hike into the very tip of it. It is one of only 3 glaciers in the world that meet up with a rainforest. It was an amazing contrast to be on a glacier surrounded by rainforest mountains. The pictures don't really do it justice- we had to hike in and out of huge crevices - some were so narrow you could only squeeze through them. This will most likely be our last update. We are off to Christchurch tomorrow and home on Saturday. Thanks for following us on our journey!!!!... read more