Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand Travel Blogs

... early. We had planned to look into getting a helicopter flight over one of the glaciers, and we were advised to organize from Franz Josef - the biggest one. At lunchtime we arrived at Fox Glacier and took a walk to the bottom of this one and admired ...

A travel blog entry by paulandciara
This is a top pick!

Alex: We got into Franz Josef and headed straight out to the glacier. The glacier sits at the end of a valley it has calved, and a sign marks the end of the glacier in 1720, about 2 km from the glacial face today. The valley is beautiful and the glacier is ...

A travel blog entry by alexndean
This is a top pick!

The Fox Glacier is one of two major glaciers along the West Coast of South Island; the other is Franz Josef Glacier, just 30 minutes north of Fox. Both glaciers offer heli-hikes, day long and half-day hikes but Franz Josef is said to be more crowded with ...

A travel blog entry by gonetilwhenever
This is a top pick!

... of New Zealand's west coast grind and fracture your perspective. They wear away one's sense of scale. At Franz Josef, we park our car where the glacier once stood and hike forest paths along its slow retreat from history. Like all the great ice flows in ...

A travel blog entry by mbgower
This is a top pick!

... . Once off the bus we began the first leg of the expedition, a nice 45-minute trek to the foot of the Franz Josef Glacier across a semi-lunar landscape of rocks, shingle and creeks. Once at the base the large group had already strung out and had begun ...

A travel blog entry by escapetherace
This is a top pick!

... car to gaze in awe at the scenery. Soon enough we arrived in the township of Franz Josef - famous for its name sake Franz Josef Glacier which is just outside of town. Our campsite is just so nice, the kitchens are clean and modern, the bathrooms are a ...

A travel blog entry by alinmattrtw2005
This is a top pick!

After a brief stop for lunch we then drove to Franz Josef Glacier and instead of walking to the terminal face, we did the Sentinal Rock walk instead, which provides good photos and views of the glacier. The glacier was named by Julius von Haast after ...

A travel blog entry by shonandgraham
This is a top pick!

... to wearing green cloaks and other Middle Earth garb. (I read that some Japanese Tolkien fanatics had placed an order with the New Zealand company that supplied costumes for the film crew. The order was not written in Japanese or English, but elveish!) We ...

A travel blog entry by martin
This is a top pick!

... behind gangly me. So he thought someone was dead. Oh the fun we had up there. As with alot of places in New Zealand the Department of Conservation has its meat hooks in the glaciers. Therefore, again there is only one company running these tours. ...

A travel blog entry by siscri
This is a top pick!

... forgotten the town. This morning I was psyched to wake up to beautiful blue skies again, and the bus ride down to Franz Josef Glacier was quick and uneventful. Well, maybe it was eventful for those people who got really turned on by panning for gold ...

A travel blog entry by easyread
This is a top pick!

... day started early and we ate a healthy and filling breakfast. Today we are attempting to climb Franz Josef, the worlds' steepest and fastest flowing guided glacier. We went to the meeting point where we were suited up in fashionable blue Gortex jackets ...

A travel blog entry by whereshegoes
This is a top pick!

... a short walk at Lake Matheson which on a good day has fantastic views of Mount Cook before making the 20 km drive to Franz Josef glacier. The hike to the terminal face at Franz Josef was closed due to bad weather but we enjoyed 2 other walks there which ...

... on one side, and glorious rainforst at the foot of the mountains on the other side. We ended the drive at Franz Josef glacier, where we did a heli-hike. Not the cheapest option to see the glacier, but absolutely amazing. After a 10 minute helicopter ...

Pain. Pain and a few photos. That is what remains after I spent 7 hours yesterday climbing Franz Josef Glacier, the steepest and fastest moving commercially guided glacier in the world. Everyone says how amazing it is but they fail to tell you how much you ...

Am sitting in an internet cafe in Franz Josef Glacier (the village is also called that, I'm not actually IN the glacier!) writing this latest installement and drying off. They get 5 meters of rain a year here. It feels as though quite a lot of it fell on ...

Arriving in the tiny town of Franz Josef Glacier it quickly became apparent that the whole setup was entirely geared towards glacier tourism with as many backpackers, guides and helicopter companies as you could fit into a 100m stretch of road. We checked ...

... on a full day walk on the Franz Josef Glacier which is just a few kilometres up the road. 13th April 2007 - Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand Daniel's Day on the Franz Josef Glacier: I have an early start this morning as I am going on a full day ...

Franz Josef Glacier - There are thousands of glaciers in New Zealand, though only three large ones. Franz Josef is one of the larger ones. We got a helicoptor to the top of the glacier (300 meters of ice deep at its thickest point) where we hiked around ...

This is a really amazing place especcially if your English as you just wouldn't get anything like this at home. A glacier is caused from a load of snow being compacted at the top of a mountain and then being forced down the hill from the weight of the snow ...

... but there are two that you can get to easily so that's where all the tourists are) so we made our way up to Franz Josef glacier - a town named after its glacier, right next door to Fox glacier, another small town and glacier. Andy went off to do a heli- ...

FRANZ JOSEF, Jan. 6 -- Hi from a cold and misty glacier, a World Heritage Park here on the West Coast of the South Island. But I'm not writing about that today. Instead I'm writing about something that I"ve been thinking about since my first full day ...

... . To be honest I found this was getting a little boring after a while - I just wanted to keep walking and explore the glacier higher up! It was a pretty unique experience for us though: Fortunately my dodgy ankle (which I`d done in a few days ...

After a night down at Milford Sound we headed on up to Franz Josef village. This is glacier country. There are two glaciers in the area Fox and Franz Josef. We did some walks around them the first day and got some cool views. For the second day we ...

... of course... After that, nothing worth stopping for except a couple of lake views for 60 miles or so to Franz Josef Glacier. Plenty of straight, fast road and a section which snaked over a place called Mount Hercules! The glacier village is tourist ...

We arrived in Franz Josef after a 30 minute drive from Fox.... We have been very lazy and have not been to view the glacier as the cloud is very thick.... no flights have gone out today (it is currently 4.40pm) and the cloud is very thick. I took ...

... just off the side of the road, Andy had a good look inside, exploring all the tunnels. We then drove on towards Franz Josef Glacier, stopping at Greymouth just to see if we should be visiting anything on the way, but there was only Goldmine towns. It ...

... but, picked up, mixed about, expanded and put together in an unfamiliar placing. Today I walked a small length of the Franz Josef glacier. The rain had washed off the outer crust of the glacier, so the ice was a translucent blue colour. Very beautiful. ...

Hi Everyone, Continued on from Wanaka and finally arrived at the Franz Joseph glacier , long long drive. The main roads here head through National parks which go with the curves in the mountains so it can be slow going around bends and over bridges. It ...

... too late, it was too windy and the mountains were mostly in clouds. It was still a pleasant walk before heading to Franz-Josef. You guessed right - it was named after the Austro-Hungarian emporer by no other than Julius Haast (who in turn was knighted ...