Snow and Ice at the Glacier - no Polar Bears!
Trip Start
Jul 31, 2005
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139
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Trip End
Sep 05, 2007
Franz Josef Glacier,
New Zealand
Monday, December 11, 2006
That day was fairly uneventful because we just drove all day, nexy morning we were up and with the tent packed into the back of the car we headed south. First stop just outside of Westport was Tauranga Bay, this place has wild west coast beaches, amazing scenery and a seal colony. We went and visited the seals who were lounging around on the rocks below us before heading up to the Cape Foulwind (that name gave us a few jokes let me tell you!)
Ali and Matt at Franz Josef Glacier
. Up there was a sign indicating cities all over the world, including of course good old London - we discovered that were at that point 16,236,000kilometres from London - took some piccies and jumped back in the car.The road south to Greymouth was beautiful, the seas on this coast are much harsher - there are a lot of surfing beaches and a lot of dangerous beaches too. We drove along stopping for photos every now and then. We stopped for a few hours at Punakaiki - as part of Paparoa National Park Punakaiki is home to the famous Pancake Rocks. So called, because the stone through erosion is stacked like pancakes, there are stacks and stacks of these things jutting out into the sea, it was an amazing sight and we pondered there for a while. We took the loop walk around the rocks to various lookout points and to the amazing powerful blowholes, ate some lunch and continued south.
The road eventually turned inland and we drove through some boring scenery and small towns, just outside of Whataroa we saw the most magnificent snow capped mountains ever - the view was just outstanding and soon enough we were crossing the Whataroa River - which is turquoise and backed by the iced mountains - once again we hopped out of the 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
Ali climbing Franz Josef Glacier
. Our campsite is just so nice, the kitchens are clean and modern, the bathrooms are a delight. This is our third night here now, we shall probably leave tommorow. Yesterday we did a guided tour onto the glacier. As a visitor you are only allowed so far as the terminal face where the area ois then roped off. If you like us, pay a guide you can go high up on the glacier. How many times in your life do you get to walk on a glacier? So we opted for the 3/4 day trip which would take us high up onto the glacier for some stunning views.
We were picked up in the morning and taken to the companies offices where we were kitted out in waterproofs and walking boots, we were issued with crampons for our boots once we were on the glacier. The bus took us as far as the car park and from there we had an hours hike to the terminal face. The hike itself was fairly easy, we had to walk across streams and some parts of the walk was ever so rocky - but it was fine. As we neared the glacier you could see some amazing waterfalls - some near the base and some high up in the mountains - all around us we were gazing at snow capped mountains.
The day was absolutly brilliant, once we were on the ice our guide cut steps for us with an ice axe, it was steep in places and sometimes hard work, but it was all worth it. We saw some blue ice and lots of crevices in the glacier, it was an amazing experience and we loved it, we stopped for luch and ate our sarnies which we had made in the morning, then our guide got a message on his walkie talkie to say that we couldnt go any further, they had gone on ahead to cut the steps for us, but the glacier had melted in the heat and parts were very unstable. It was a shame, but better to safe than sorry, it diddnt matter that we couldnt go any further, we had seen the outstanding blue ice, a huge ice cave and had a brilliant day - if anything, hearing the reason that we couldnt go any further up just reinforced the fact that this is nature - no man built this, its just here in our world and theres not much we can do to stop it! Its nature, its totally out of our hands.
Hugs
Ali n Matt
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