Caledonian Creek Lodge Westland National Park

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Took a local bus South past some stunning coastline / scenery, reaching Franz around 4pm. Booked into a dorm where a few Geordie's were staying, so had a bit of craic with them. Got myself booked onto an 8.15 full day glacier hike (the rest of the group are on the 9.15, but that was full when i arrived). Had a walk around 'town' and a couple of beers, but the place was fairly quiet ...

... way we came.

We were beat after the hike, headed back to our hotel for a quick shower before dinner. We met a group of mountain bikers on a road trip through New Zealand on our tour. They were pretty friendly, and we ran into them at dinner near our hotel. They were an interesting crew...and the retired hippie lumberjack (who enjoyed humming during our hike) even bought us dinner...nice! We bought their table a round of drinks and called it even.

A GREAT DAY!

... a nice hotel, decent bar and once again i got the 4 bed room to myself - am beginning to think i must smell or something?!! Again, stunning drive to get there only confirming that this really must be the most beautiful country in the world. The highlight of my trip however was the glacier hike that i managed to get to do. This is basically a 4 hour walking tour of the glacier, complete with waterproofs, hiking boots and crampons ...

... great along the way. We were both pretty tired when we got back at the end of the afternoon so this called for some more fish and chips when we got to Hokitika our chosen town for an overnight stay a bit further up the coast. It looked a bit like a wild west town but had a big chippy so all was good.
Never been on a glacier before so it was a belter. The guides spend all day up there which probably explains why they were built like whippets.

... to get comfortable in a camp-site before sundown.
We'd pre-arranged our tour on arrival so the following day was set.
23/8
The 'Fox' falls 2600 metres from its formation 8 miles inland in the southern alps region. It is the only glacier to fall to within 300 metres of sea level into a lush, tropical rainforest.
A short bus ride up the valley took us to the start of our 8 hr hike up onto the lower slopes of the glacier. We were in a party of ...

... was special. Our group on this trek was bigger
there were 11 of us and they of course gave us everything we needed,
including boots, but no ice axe. Up close the glacier is enormous –
as you can see by the pics -- people, rocks that are 10 meters high
are miniature in comparison. And all around you – you're surrounded
by these gigantic mountains. It makes you feel so miniscule. The
glacier from a distance ...

... but no one will ever know because they can't persuade the owners of the houses to sell their properties and move away. We stopped at the information center and I did a little gold panning. I admit, I was more interested in finding the two little pieces of jade in my pan than the actual gold! Yes, jade, or greenstone, or pounamu is very much a part of the local culture. In fact, only Maori are allowed to ...

... glacier. At first we found it difficult to balance on the crampons, but we soon found that if you scuff your feet they have a firm grip. We hiked up to the surface of the glacier, where we were given ice axes, so we felt like proper mountaineers! We hiked up the ice through huge ridges with gaps between our feet. We crawled through tunnels, and even found a cave in the ice. The ice was very blue. We had one very narrow gap in the ice to squeeze through ...

... to it, covered in waves and pitted holes and beautiful natural shapes carved into it by the weather.

We climbed to 900m above sea level, before eating our lunch; which had to be the most surreal pick-nick we've ever had!! The final 2.5 hours on the ice were spent squeezing through tiny crevasses, where we had to pull ourselves through and we had to crawl through caves in the ice. It was such an amazing experience that we will never forget.

... New Zealand continued to expand due to a band of warm, low pressure air flowing from the West Coast and rising and condensing over the Southern Alps as moisture, rain, and snow. This path of band of wind was known affectionately as "The Roaring Forties," named after the southern hemisphere latitude of this area. We hiked towards the ...