A Mint day Intrepid explorers out on Franz Josef
Trip Start
Mar 30, 2008
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77
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Trip End
Mar 31, 2009
Franz Josef, South Island, New Zealand
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Friday 12th September
Unfortunately not quite as wonderful a day as yesterday, cloudy and threatening to drizzle. We turned up in good time in the office to be kitted out with waterproof jackets & trousers, boots and socks and crampons to enable walking on the glacier. We met our guides and were briefed and loaded onto the coach. Loaded being the word, there were 44 people on our coach doing a full day a trip, each having paid around £50. So that makes £2200, there were two full day trips - £4400 another ¾ day trip, a half day trip and a helicopter trip all by the same monopoly, a total of around £15000 for the day. Alex'd say they doing pretty well and having been denied his 10% discount and then having to be fitted with xxl overtrousers the tone was lets say one of dissapointment so far
01 Getting kitted up
! However when we were met with our first sight of the glacier we were glad not to have missed it. You can of course walk all the way to the terminal face without a guide and this itself would be a great thing to do. We had chosen to pay for the guide and what a guide she was. Pearl was a mere 18 years of age of Maori descent dragged up in or on the streets of an Auckland suburb and now guiding after having been (released!) from the NZ Army for drinking related offences. Hopefully she will be reaccepted in the next month. That said she was great fun to be with for the day and definitely earnt her minimum wage risking life and limb with 11 tourists on an extremely unstable, but exceptionally beautiful glacier. It was a long day and we walked hard all day constantly making detours or rerouting as required when one route became too dangerous. We saw the amazing caverns on the pictures and learned a little about glaciology.
That evening we decided to cut and dash and headed for Haast when on the way we came across a DOC (Dept of Conservation) campsite at Lake Paringa, which was so beautiful we stayed for the evening.
Saturday 13th September
Tired from Glacier trekking we had a late start and enjoyed the warmth of a sunny morning
02 First view of Franz Josef
. With all the doors and windows closed to prevent the hundreds of sand flies swarming over the outside of the van gaining entry and a free Pakeha breakfast. We soon to realised they had already enjoyed an evening meal the night before! We then left headed for Wanaka, on route we noticed a sign for whitebait. This is a local delicacy and the season had just opened. We stopped off and bought a meal pack for $20 250gms, this is expensive but saved us going through the effort of catching our own. This as you can see from the pictures requires specialist equipment, a lot of patience and even more luck. The whitebait is a young fish, but much smaller than Meditteranean Whitebait, without bones and a milder taste. Wanaka turned out to be a really lovely town on the shore of a huge lake and a ski base for the Cardrona ski fields. After our first try of Whitebait patties which we were both pleasantly surprised with, yes Clare says she likes it too, we met up with Zoe and Ed who we originally met in Fiji and had bumped into on the FJ glacier. That evening the four of us cheered the All Blacks on to a close fought victory against Australia in both the Tri Nations and the Bedisloe Cup whilst tucking into Speights beer.
Sunday 14th September
Rudely awoken by the DOC camp warden who was after our cash we rose early
03 Quick pose
. This was good for Zoe and Ed who were off skiing and had only left our van around 1am that morning! For us it meant an early start on the journey to Queenstown where we too had booked a fantastic three day ski deal including accommodation in a room with beds, a tv, hot showers and best of all heating!We arrived around lunchtime and this gave us plenty of time to pay for the package and source additional equipment not covered in the package. We did this extremely succesfully as there were two pairs of goggles left in the accommodation which we got for free and then whilst paying for the package at SkiExpress we found a pair of ex rental gloves for $7 each. The rest of the day was spent doing a few essential internet things, lots of birthdays in September, and looking around Queenstown which is a really funky town with so much to do in and around that you really need two weeks and around £2000 to enjoy it fully! The lake is beautiful and there is a really interesting underwater observatory there.
In the evening we made our way out of town to the nearest DOC site which was beside a river and very beautiful, but basic as... (Kiwi saying for really rather basic). We invited Zoe and Ed around to our place and between us managed to russle up a two course meal. The Rhodesies supplied Whitebait patties with bread and butter, and our dinner companions cooked up a lovely Carbonnara, full up and after more beer we turned in ready for a really early start.
