FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER

Hi Guys

I'm still alive! Travelling along the West Coast is a special experience. You find hostels without internet, not many people and definitely no connection for your cellphone most of the time (it is terrible but I got addicted to my new little friend as everyone here is texting like crazy and while i wouldn't mind in Germany, I thought it might be a better idea to avoid the outsider status for at least a few months.). Apart from that this part of the country is very VERY beautiful. It is a total cliche but it actually consists of endless beaches and i feel really bad to tell you I haven't been for a swim yet. It's probablt got something to do with Kiwi Experience (i like it very much to just blame THEM for everything that goes wrong) as we get dropped off too late in the towns so you usually can't enjoy a day at the beach. Another problem is the west coast itself as it is so very beautiful but most of the time you try to hide from the rain by doing excessive shopping at New World and then cooking nice food in your hostel. I try very hard to eat as healthy as possible and I am proud to say that I have been in New Zealand for half a year without eating one single mince meat pie. I consider them evil. Instead I sit in the hostel and eat vegetables which I am actually too stupid to cook properly. I just remember cooking brokkoli in the microwave in taupo with Annalen and Sabine. This was not a good idea.

Hopefully you haven't stopped reading by now because I'm apparently not able to get to the point. Read the headline. This post is supposed to be about the glacier, which is where i am now, pretty much in the middle of the South Island. I left the kiwi experience bus a few days ago to have a break from the 'get off the bus and get drunk' people which i do not love so much but after an overnight stop in Greymouth, I headed in the same direction with an Intercity bus to meet my bus again. I have decided that Kiwi Experience is not my favourite way of travelling, but this is good knowledge for the next time so I'm just gonna use up my ticket and be cool calm and collected all the time even though it gets sooo annoying.
The little village of Franz Josef consists of two streets, of which one obviously is home to the YHA where I live at the moment and which I like, and the other street runs straight to the walkway WHICH finally brings you to the glacier. I wanted to do a guided tour as it's too dangerous to climb the glacier on your own and you can get good photos but are not allowed to actually be IN the glacier.

I decided for the full day hike and after three requests the people at the guiding company were annoyed enough by me to give me the child discount. The full day started early at quarter oast nine and I made myself a huge lunch which I'm still proud of. The amazing thing about Franz Josef is that it is very special together with two other Glaciers in the world who also flow quite low and end in actual rainforest. One of the other ones is somewhere in Argentina and the third is Fox Glacier just down the road from the village.
The name is also a bit weird.....the glacier was first investigated by an Austrian, Julius von Haast and after he had named a few glaciers and rivers around in New Zealand after himself, he decided that it was time to name one after his king FRANZ JOSEF (I don't want to tell you anything wrong but I'm pretty sure this is Franzerl from 'Sissi'!!) . So much about filling up you brains with incredibly useful knowledge about glaciers on the other side of the world.

After a short walk through the rainforest we strapped on our Ice crampons (basically spikes to put under your hiking boots) and they seemed to make a lot of sense when we saw the steep climb up the glacier!! When you're in it all the ice around you forms a bit of nightmare landscape. Some ice blocks look like waves of water crashing down that have frozen right in the movement and between the giant formations are huge crevasses where you better not fall in. Once I underestimated a small spot of melted ice that looked like just two centimetres deep, I stepped into it and it was half a metre and my boot got completely wet. I was wearing shorts to the sharp edges of the ice made a rather disgusting bloodbath of my right leg. It looked much scarier than it actually was but hopefully its gonna end up making a scar which I can show off at home. "Oh yeah, that was when I went ice climbing in New Zealand".....sorry :)

As we got further up we even got to see some blue ice, parts where the blocks have opened to form little caves with a weird blue colour that looks just magic. And finally, we reached about the middle of the glacier itself which was a lookout point again: the sea is so close you can see it from the mountains. Looking forward to showing you those pictures!

Well we all came back pretty tired but absolutely satisfied. You see a lot of things you haven't even thought about before. Just amazing!!

Love to you all
Cora