Day three, my favorite day for exploring. Woke up real early because I realized that I had left my jacket on the bus the day before. I was hoping to catch the same driver on his way out of Franz Joseph and back to Queenstown at 8am. Glad I did get up, because the morning was bright, sunny, and warm. Walking through the small town I could see my breath and the frost just melting off the plants. The mountains were stunning, freshly show covered and shimmering in the morning sun. Other tourists who were up early were all in the middle of the street snapping photos, since the day before they were shrouded in clouds. Here's a photo of a bit later in the morning.
I was really excited to do the glacier hike in the morning, at the place they said this has been the first good day in two weeks, soo glad it was not raining. We suited up with our gear, heavy boots and crampons, jackets, and wool gloves and after a brief safety briefing walked to the helipad to get picked up and flown right onto the glacier.
I'm sporting some new sunnies here, they set a new bar for my sunglasses buying habits. These were $3 at the bargain store on Cuba street.
The flight, about 7 minutes, was really cool. It was so pretty to see the glacier from up above and the valley that I had hiked through the day before. You could hear the pilots talking in the earphones too.
We landed about the middle of the glacier, it was still in the shade for about an hour. This was probably good for me, cause I got sun burnt here anyways. The guides stopped to put on more sunscreen every couple of hours, I understand now why. Everything is reflecty, the snow, the ice, its a terrible place for a fair-skinned American.
We walked for just over 3 hours, it was hard work tramping up and down the ice paths and we stopped frequently to take breaks. My group was actually made up of ten others from the "kiwi experience" tour bus. I guess they had had a bit too much fun the night before because one girl kept vomiting in the snow when we would stop to rest. It was funny to me, and to the rest of her tour group, but she did not look very pleasant. I was surprised she carried on the whole morning.
Our guide, I can't remember her name so we'll call her Megan. She looked like a Megan. Megan was a native kiwi, born and raised just outside of Wellington. She came down to Franz Joseph just after completing her courses at University because she loved the outdoors and exploring. She got this job as a tour guide just 6 months ago. You could tell she way new, cause she wasn't super over enthusiastic nor did she share much of the history of the glacier with us. I stuck to the front of the group most of the time as the rest of the Kiwi Experience were mostly goofing off or snacking the whole walk, so Megan and I got to chat a bit and she took lots of photos for me which was sweet. She had a hard morning as well, this being the first day they had lead tours on the ice for a while, they had to re carve out a lot of paths, so she was busy with the pick ax most of the time or checking paths to make sure they were safe for us to walk through.
Areas where the ice had shifted then refrozen like these were what we were trying to find and avoid. The water was so clear it looked like an underwater cliff, quite deep though its hard to tell from the photo.
We got to climb through some ice tunnels, very pretty but very cold.
This one turned out really well.
Looking down the glacier at the the valley.
A quick look around.
About 1pm we got back on the helicopter to fly back down, it was lunch time and we were all very tired.
Looking down the Waiho river and to the Tasman sea!
Heli ride was boss, one of the best parts of the day.
I had stopped at the supermarket earlier and picked up a chicken and brie sandwich for lunch so I headed back to the hostel for a quick lunch and to unload some gear for my afternoon hike. I set off about 1:30 for the Alex Knob hike, and 4 hour summit, 8 hour turnaround. I was hoping the weather would hold and I could finish before dark. I had talked to Megan about it earlier in the morning and she said she climbed it with a friend in 7 hours, but with the fresh snow it may be too deep to reach the top. I was still keen to give it a go regardless.
The hardest part was since the trail was straight up the mountain, there were many points when I had to actually climb on things because I was either too short to step up on the rocks, or the path was wet and muddy and I wanted to avoid the large puddles. I managed to stay dry for a while, but eventually my feet were soaked through. I met a couple others coming down and they told me the summit was in a pretty bad condition as well. There was another girl who had started just after me and passed me, but stayed about ten minutes ahead of me. With the reports from everyone else, we decided to hike until 5pm then turn around, not wanting to get stranded in a wet and muddy trail in the dark.
After a while it started hailing on and off. I knew this ment it was raining below. It made for some nice photos though.
I passed the first lookout, Rata lookout and made it here, to the Christmas lookout before decided to call it and head back down, disappointed. You can really see the clouds moving in.
Sure enough, as I was about an hour outside of town it started raining really hard. No cars passing by this time, so I was soggy and cold by the time I made it back into town. I decided to head to the hot springs since I had a free pass from the glacier hike earlier. They were basically large outdoor hot pools, ranging from 36 C to 40 C. Very nice and relaxing, I was there about 45minutes and got a nice shower out of it, then had to get back into my wet clothes to walk home. Stopped at that restaurant again, didn't get the name, and got a burger this time. The same people were working there and I had planned to stay and eat there this time, but there was a rugby match on the tv so the place was packed. Takeaway it was, and back to the hostel to warm up by the fire.
Took these just before heading in for the night
First golden sunset I'd seen, normally the mountains or clouds block them out in Wellington. It was comforting to see the red skies again ^_^
Back at the hostel I stayed by the fire for quite a while to warm up and talked to a girl from Malaysia. She was traveling around New Zealand for a couple weeks after finishing a work assignment in Auckland. She loved the country (like most backpackers) and we talked about where we had been and about visiting Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippians. This is when I decided I don't have nearly enough travel swagger to hold my own with the backpackers. Traveling around the USA doesn't really count to them, lol. The things foreigners know about the US is New York, LA, and the Grand Canyon. Nothing in between. I enjoyed more listening to her stories and travels.
After a few hours of being warm and happy by the fire, I headed to bed. The two girls from Holland had left so it was just me and the Asian girl (who actually said a few words to me, but still not much).
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