Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Ice ice baby
I trust you are keeping up to speed with our blog so no doubt you've noticed that this is our 50th blog. "Happy Birthday to us...." We are yet to recieve any greetings, congratulations, gifts (of the financial sort) etc. There must be a delay in the email system but we look forward to the backlog of those. If anyone wants to sponsor any extreme events I will happily do them and write about the experience for you all to enjoy. I know it's a selfless act but I'm prepared to do it for the good of you all. Just email me and I will send the bank details back! Mum, I won't accept any sponsorship that involves me staying in the hostel out of harm's way!Anyway, Day 11 of our road trip has brought us to Franz Josef, a township created around the glacier of the same name. This glacier is one of only 7 'warm' glaciers of the world, in other words, one that descends into a temperate rainforest only 250m above sea level. Most other glaciers melt at an altitude of 2000m making them pretty difficult to access. Franz Josef is the world's steepest and fastest flowing commercially guided glacier so with such extreme statistics appealing to our new extreme backpacker lifestyle, we sought a piece of the action.
Our first stop was the centre where we were kitted out in waterproof trousers, highly uncomfortable boots, thermal socks, hats, mittens!! (for those unfortunate enough not to have brought gloves, ie Rhod), waterproof jackets and the all-important ice talons. All Rhod needed was the piece of string to attach the mittens together and he could have looped it through his coat reminiscent of a 5 year old school boy!
Gear on, we headed off to the glacier. Well, I say that, it actually took about an hour to get to the foot of the glacier from the car park. Very frustrating as it looks like it's about 5 minutes away. This we were told is an optical illusion created by the great height of the ice and the narrow steep valley. Gutted. Boots were starting to blister already - so pleased we'd brought the plasters with us. Oh hang on, we've forgotten them. Great, only another 5 hours of walking left to do before we get back to the hostel.
Once on the glacier we had to split into 2 groups, the more confident ones going with Troy and the less confident ones going with Tim. Being the modest, shy and retiring types we opted to go with...Troy. Bring on the ice! We found ourselves clambering up metre high steps which Troy had to cut out of the ice using an ice axe. He was particularly proud of the scar on his head resulting from a rebounding axe and he amused/scared us with stories of him being hospitalised 3 times due to 'errors of judgement.' We twice had to squeeze through dripping wet crevasses only just wide enough to fit through and then descend 5 metre drops the other side with only a piece of slippery wet rope to aid us.
We emerged from the whole event unscathed, barring a few blisters and some sore ankles. In all we spent about 4 hours on the ice climbing up to explore the first ice fall. It was a great trip and one that we would recommend to anyone heading to New Zealand (bring your own plasters.) After such an arduous work out we will now be taking it easy for the next few days attempting to watch some whales from a boat and just driving around in the battered old Hyundai. We don't want to over do it. Unless of course that sponsorship comes in....
http://www.franzjosefglacier.com/
# posted by Rhodri @ 7:58 am 
