Ice Ice baby

Trip Start Sep 10, 2008
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Trip End Sep 03, 2009


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Flag of New Zealand  , South Island,
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Heading across to the West Coast, I got the Trans-Alpine railway, billed as being one of the most scenic railways in the world. A little while into the journey, we were told that the best bit was coming up, so rather predictably perhaps, a lot of us all crammed onto the tiny open air viewing platform in the middle of the train. Too many of us really. As passing landmarks were announced, there was something resembling a rugby scrum as everyone rushed from one side of the train to the other in the hope to get a photo. Children and the elderly were not excluded, and often used their tiny size or pointy elbows to their full (but subtle) advantage. Stand on the wrong side and you get a view of a lot of grass growing on the side of a hill as I found out. And so that is how we spent a good half an hour of our journey, I half expected the train to suddenly jolt to one side as the crowd of people moved across. As the rain started to come in, the crowd reduced, leaving us more room to take more pictures of moody clouds over mountains Trans-Alpine railway 2
Trans-Alpine railway 2
 . The greatest disappointments of course came as we went past two of the most scenic viewpoints, both over bridges and both obscured by a thick grill. A collective moan was to be heard.

I arrived in a small town called Greymouth. A very small town! Unfortunately, I co-ordinated my arrival to be on a Sunday, so the little that was there was all shut. Nevermind, it meant I spent less money and there was a lot of good company in the hostel that night. And then it was time to join the Magic bus to begin my real tour. What is this Magical bus you may be asking. Even if you're not I'm going to explain, its simply a bus for backpackers that you can book various tours round the country on a hop on, hop off basis. Its the best out of three companies that does this kind of thing however is clearly the bus for people in the know. Of course the other 2 bus companies claim this, but they must simply be misinformed! I could have gone the less touristy way and got the intercity, but hey, what can I say, anything for an easier life!

And so down to Franz Joseph I headed. I was excited, I'd been looking forwards to seeing the Glacier since before I left the UK. As we arrived into the village, the bus driver gave us a tantalizing glimpse of part of the Glacier high up in the mountains Franz Joseph Glacier 1
Franz Joseph Glacier 1
 . The weather was hanging on a knife edge and we all prayed for it to come good in the morning. Signing up for the ice climbing, I stared at the fitness status which claimed it was "adventurous". The other options were "easy" or "moderate". When I first left the UK, this wouldn't have been a problem. That was 6 months ago. My fitness is not what it used to be shall we say. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and we headed for the hills in the morning.
 
I was in for a shock, or at least, my ever dwindling muscles were. First were the ski boots. If you've ever worn ski boots, or even stiff in-line skates, then you will know how heavy and inflexible they are. These were to be our hiking boots. Walking in them is not easy. Unfortunately we had to wear them, as the inflexibility is vital for the ice climbing. We had an hour's hike, just to get to the terminal face of the Glacier, nevermind the hike up the thing! It was steep. As the rest of the group of 6 raced up, I felt like turning back. Thankfully, we slowed the pace down, and I somehow managed to get up there, with the help of more than a few stops. And the view was worth it. It was a beautiful sunny day, and as such, was quite warm. The white of the huge glacier against the pure blue sky was stunning. We one of the first groups up there, (possibly thanks to the fact we practically ran up it!) and it felt like we had the glacier to ourselves.

But we didn't have long to relax, it was time to get ourselves rigged up and start the climbing. After the huge walk up the Glacier, which had taken us a couple of hours, the climbing turned out to be the easy part. Kind of. Physically, it wasn't that difficult, although that was perhaps because I was using my arms far more than you're supposed Franz Joseph Glacier 2
Franz Joseph Glacier 2
 . Its a bit of a strange feeling, you feel like you're standing on nothing. It was important to keep our heels pointing downwards, but thats the last thing you want to do because it feels like you will loose the grip on your crampons. Hitting the ice axes was harder than I thought. You have to really swing them behind them to get enough momentum for them to grip onto the wall of the ice, but if you do that, you feel like you're going to pull yourself off the wall backwards. It was quite scary really, although I knew I was attached with a rope, I felt like I could fall off any moment. Still, we all managed to make it to the top of at least one of the walls we tried.

After lunch sat on the ice, which was pretty cold, and watching several tour groups pass us after we had changed our location it was time for our descent. We watched with envy as the tour guides cut steps into the ice for their groups and they had many breaks whilst waiting for this to happen (apparently too many for some!). We didn't get steps! Although we were wearing ice climbing boots so, meh! Clambering through crevices, we came out onto the ice field. Usually, there are ice arches and caves to explore, but none of the groups had found one for the last few days, as the is constantly shifting and melting. But then our guide darted into the distance. A couple of minutes later he beckoned us over. He had found an ice hole/tunnel cave thing. It was pretty cool, apart from the part where I nearly fell over backwards into the big pit when trying to climb out. It was kinda funny really.

Other than that, I found someone from Brighouse working at the hostel. For those of you wondering, Brighouse is a small town in West Yorkshire, in between Halifax and Huddersfield. It also happens to be the neck of the woods that I'm from. Very few people know where it is, and its quite miraculous to meet anyone from there, even in other parts of Yorkshire, nevermind on the other side of the world.
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