The Glacier

Trip Start Aug 21, 2006
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Trip End Nov 24, 2006


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Flag of New Zealand  ,
Monday, October 30, 2006

Still pumped up from the pant wettingly scary Nevis bungee, we drove along the twisting mountain roads at top speed, pulling handbrakes and doing burnouts; overtaking around bends, you know, generally the kinds of things adrenaline junkies like us we'll be doing from now on! Actually, the stereo in our car is a piece of crap and the radio no longer works, so we need to do something to stop us from being bored silly in the car, and neither of us have good singing voices!

We got to Franz Josef late, after driving for a few hours along the twistiest roads ever with the most inconsistent weather ever. However, we were fortunate enough to have good weather in the morning, and the view from the hostel window was stunning - more snow capped mountains. We got onto the 3/4 day trekk up the Franz Josef glacier - the steepest and tallest commercially trekked glacier in the world - we got kitted out with mittens, a hat, jacket - the works - including talon spikes for our waterproof boots Breakfast with a view
Breakfast with a view
 .

The glacier was awesome and it was good to see how far it has receeded in such a short space of time...worse than my hairline! The guides got pick-axes, sadly we didn't, although I know I would have put mine to better use than one of our guides, who just picked at the already perfect steps like a fairy. We climbed through a tiny cave and got soaked and had what I think is the new best ham, cheese and tomato sandwich ever!

We were going to do a helicopter ride to the top, but we decided that it would be best to wait until the morning before we booked it, and we were glad that we did because the weather was awful and it would have been a very dull ride. Onwards to Kaikoura!

PS: Has anyone seen the film 'North Hollywood Shootout?' - Best bullet count ever. Terrible film. And football was on the other channel!
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