New Zealand - Fox Glacier
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2005
1
74
124
Trip End
Ongoing
Fox Glacier,
New Zealand
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Our first opportunity was Wanaka so we located the tourist info and asked where we could find a garage that was open - the 2nd January being a public holiday! After trawling around several mechanics we found one that was open only to find that they didn't do tyres. He called another mechanic and we drove to meet him. In the meantime we found that the rear passenger tyre had an identical bulge on its side wall!
We waited for the mechanic to turn up - eventually he did so 20 minutes late (not great when we were short of time!) and just sat around in his car before waltzing off with his dog. Finally he opened up the garage and dropped the bombshell that we would be charged an $80 call out fee - first we'd heard! He then told us the tyres would cost $150 each and labour would be $50 - what a rip-off! He was rude and abrupt when we mentioned that we didn't know anything about the call out fee and that we had been waiting around for him to arrive, telling us to go away and he didn't want to know.
Unfortunately we had little choice - we needed to get back on the road as soon as possible and no other garages were open - we had to get the work done with him or miss our Fox Glacier trip.
001 Fox Glacier Helicopter
When the work was done Andrew managed to get $50 knocked off the price and we got back on the road. We couldn't afford to break the new tyres in gently and Andrew had to drive like Stirling Moss in order to get to Fox Glacier in time. It should have taken 4 hours but we made it in just over 3.
We made it with enough time to check into the budget accommodation we had booked - only to find out the room still wasn't ready, so we dumped our stuff and legged it to the Office for the Heli-Hike. The heli-hike is just as it suggests; a helicopter trip up onto the glacier followed by a hike around on the ice before a flight back to town.
We donned walking boots and split into small groups for the hike and then jumped aboard helicopters (PIC). The choppers took us up over the glacier, getting a good view of the surrounding area (PICS) and a huge waterfall that fell from the mountain and then down behind the glacier. We then landed on the glacier and disembarked the helicopter. Our guide, Graham (PIC), met us on the glacier and handed out crampons to attach to the base of our boots to give us some additional grip when walking on the ice. We also got an alpine strut (big pointy stick) to help with support whilst hiking.
We began our hike on the glacier, on top of 1,000 feet of solid ice. The glacier is very steep and as a result it does not hold as much moraine (dust, dirt and rock) as the Tasman Glacier we saw a few days earlier. This makes it much cleaner and whiter than other slower moving glaciers and produces fantastic ice structures. Some areas of the ice were stained with red and grey dust - these impurities are actually caused by particles in the air from as far as Australia. It can even gather soot from bush fires that occur in Australia!
The fast motion of the ice creates crevices (PICS); the deeper ice possesses a flexible, rubberised quality, which allows it to bend with the changing gradient and direction of the mountain. The top ice is much harder and cannot flex so it cracks under the pressure, producing crevices that can easily swallow a person.
Another feature of the glacier was a collection of ice tunnels and caves, some of which we were able to crawl and even stand in (PIC). The colours of the ice in these tunnels were incredible - vibrant blue against a pure white background (PICS) - one tunnel was so small that Andrew had to slide along on his side to get through (PIC), getting absolutely soaked in the process!
We spent 2 hours on the ice before heading back to the pick-up point for the helicopter. It was hard work walking for all that time, especially for Verdi's knees and ankles, which held out well but felt like they could go at any minute. The trip was really brilliant; informative, fascinating and a completely new experience that was well worth the money (even if it was pretty expensive at $300 each).
