Glaciers, the old fashioned way

Well I made it to Franz Josef no problem and had a lovely evening chatting to people in my hostel (nice place called Glow Worm Cottages) although I did turn done the invitation to watch the Return of the King at 11pm, as I didn't really fancy getting to bed at 2.30am! Most of my dorm mates watched it though, so I still got a bit of a wake up call at 2.30, but such is life.

The next day I woke up to clouds and mist (it had been sunny the afternoon before damn it). It seems that the weather has finally turned on me. Sure enough, when I checked they confirmed that the visibility was too bad for a helicopter to go to the Glacier, so my helihik was off. But what is a girl to do? That is right, walk it, if the helicopter can't get me there I'll be old fashioned and use my legs (with very angry blistered feet attached as an added perk). So I booked on to a half day guided Glacier walk, was given crampons to put on my boots (I know, they sound like they should come with wings & neurofen but turns out that they have nothing to do with the time of the month when women want to roller blade with dalmatians), a waterproof jacket and was popped on to a mini bus to take our group out to the car park near the Glacier.

After that you have to walk through some bush and than along a sort of valley (sure that isn't the geological term for it, but sod it) to the face of the glacier. It was big. Fortunately some very nice men with axes had already carved out steps so that we could climb up it. So digging my crampons in to the ice I headed up. It was very impressive. It is hard to explain why being surrounded by such a huge volume of ice is amazing, but it just is. There was so much of it and I am sure that my photos won't do it justice.

I had one sticky moment when we had to step of a sort of very deep crevice in the ice. I made the mistake of looking down and got a full on vertigo attack. Don't mind having drops near me, but stepping over them felt above and beyond the call of duty. Ram (our guide) had a firm grip of my hand but I just didn't want to move. But in the end I took a deep breath and went for it. One person in our group didn't make it over at all, so I was quite proud that I managed to overcome my fear. What they hadn't told me is that we would be coming back that way too (ahh) but fortunately I knew not to look down the second time.

Anyway the time flew by and before I knew it, it was time to head back. In a way I wish I had always gone for the hiking route, as that way I could have done a full day out there, but you live and learn and I had an 8.5 hour drive to look forward to the next day, so wasn't like I could squeeze any more glacier time before I drove off (left Franz Josef at 8.22am precisely).

Back at the hostel I enjoyed a couple of beers and "Finding Neverland" on Sky Movies, that film always makes me cry which is kind of embarassing. As mentioned above I got up early and was driving towards Te Anau just before 8.30am. I finally got here at 5pm, with a brief coffee stop, rock blasting stop (don't ask) and lunch stop,so must have been driving for about 7.5 hours solid. I am now officially knackered and will be getting a nice early night as tomorrow I have a day of Kayaking booked on Milford Sound and the pick up is at 6.30am. I am yawning just thinking about it.

Love to all...