The Glaciers

We arrived in Franz Josef a good 2 hours before we were to check in. So we grabbed some quick lunch and I took advantage of the warm sun and took a nice, very needed nap in the car for about two hours while John did some crossword puzzles.

After that, we were able to check into our room and put our stuff down before heading to the Franz Josef glacier. It was a short drive out of the very small town and then about a 45 minute walk one way to get to the terminal face or start of the glacier (well, about 100 meters away). The walk was really easy and provided some nice scenery--though there had been some cloud development in the few hours that we had been in town. As you got closer and closer to the glacier, you could feel the air get colder and colder. There are two glaciers in the area: The Franz Josef and the Fox glaciers. The Franz Josef is the bigger of the two, but at the time, with the mild winter, a lot of the glacier had melted a bit and was pretty dirty as there was no new snow to cover it.  It was still really cool, but we had to stop about 100 meter from where the glacier started for safety reasons as there are ice and rock falls every day on the glacier. 

As a little educational tid bit, glaciers are huge moving masses of old winter snow, compressed into ice, descending down a valley about 100,000 times slower than a river. Glaciers are constantly advancing and retreating, based on the weather and environmental conditions. They had pictures of the glacier back in the 1700s and 1800s and it was huge back then--taking up the entire 45 walk through river valley that we took to get the face of it. It has been retreating since then, although it hit a low point in the 70s, before expanding a bit again. If you don't believe in global warming, looking at the difference between the glaciers in pre and post-industrial revolution/introduction of European settlers, it's pretty hard to deny the drastic change. 

Anywho, we enjoyed the walk and then headed back to our backpackers for the night. The place we stayed was recommended to us by the hostel manager, Mike, back in Picton. It was called Rainforest Backpackers and it was a huge complex that had dorms, hotel-like rooms with en suites, and self-contained cabins. Mike described it as "awesome." Yeah, it was definitely NOT awesome. The facilities were pretty okay, yes. They had a free outdoor sauna that we enjoyed for a bit when we got back, and vouchers for a cheap dinner at the onsite restaurant and bar. $12 for an okay meal,  but it beat cooking in the slightly crowded kitchen. What made the place so bad, was the freaking Kiwi Experience. Kiwi Experience is a bus service that goes all over the country. You can get a ticket that is good for a year and you can take as many trips as you want in that year and get on and off wherever, whenever you want. It is primarily used by English 18-20 year old gap-students who are simply here to drink and party their way around the country. THEY were the problem. John and I got a dorm room in one of the big complexes, and while we had the room to ourselves for the two nights we were there it didn't matter--we might as well have been back in a college dorm room. The kids all left around 10-11 p.m. loud and making noise, yelling, and going up and down the stairs sounding like they were dropping bowling balls. The fact that John and I had the room closest to the outside stairwell didn't help. The walls were paper thin so when everyone trickled back drunk and loud between 2 and 4 a.m. it also kept us up. Not a good nights sleep at all--and I was already sleep deprived. Around 3 in the morning I got fed up and went out in to the hall and closed the door that led to the outside porch at the top of the stairs as there was a big pow-pow going on and we couldn't sleep through the noise. Luckily we were able in sleep in late the next morning, but I really wish we hadn't booked a 2nd night--I would have gladly gone to one of the smaller backpackers in town. 

The second day we just hung around a bit and relaxed and then went on a few walks around the area. Nothing special and there were more clouds that prevented us from getting nice views. The second night was a bit better, as it was a Sunday and many of the Kiwi Experience people had moved on. But, we still decided to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning to catch the sunrise on Lake Matheson in the Fox Glacier township. We had heard that dawn and dusk hours were the best times to go to the lake as there were fantastic reflections of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook in the water. So we got up in the dark at 5:30 a.m., got ready, not caring how much noise we made, and headed out at 6:00 a.m. to make the drive to Fox. We arrived with plenty of time and were joined on the lake path by a guy from the French part of Switzerland. We got to the first viewpoint before the sun even came up--when the sky was still starry and a deep blue. It was really pretty to watch the sun gradually come up and watch the lake awaken with animals. It was also really peaceful as there were only 3 of us there. 

Once the sun started to come up more we headed to the next viewing point which was aptly called "the view of views." Indeed, it was  gorgeous and the mountains were perfectly framed in front of the lake. We spent a good amount of time there, getting some great pictures. 

We stopped at a final spot that let you get right down to lake level where you could get some great reflections. 

We finished our walk around the lake around 9:00 a.m. and were glad we made the trip so early because the cafe right next to the parking lot was starting to get busy with visitors. We decided to head to Fox Glacier next, as we were staying in a (different) backpackers back in Franz Josef that night. Fox glacier is a bit smaller and the walk is a bit shorter. There were a lot of tour groups that morning walking on the path with us. They were led by guides who would take them onto the actual glacier, but those guided walks were too much money for John and I. We settled with stopping at the yellow ropes about 100 meters from the start of the glacier where, at both glaciers, there was a cheesy life-size cardboard cutout of a DOC person with their hand out, gesturing for people to stop. 

We got some nice pictures, as the Fox glacier, while smaller, was a bit cleaner and nicer looking than the larger Franz, and headed back out. 

When we got back into Franz Josef we checked into our new backpackers for the night that was just down the road. While it was rather busy that night and we had a full dorm room, it was still much quieter and there were no snorers. We had already done most everything there is to do in both towns, so we sat in the lounge and watched Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life, on (VHS!), for part of the afternoon. Then we decided to venture to a walk just down the road that led to some old gold mining tunnels. The walk was longer and steeper than I expected, and especially difficult wearing rain boots (as the woman told us the tunnels had a small river of water running through it). However, once we got there we were able to explore the small portion of the tunnels that was still open. It was really cool, though really dark, so I was glad we had a flashlight and that I was wearing my gumboots as we waded through the water. In the deeper parts of the tunnel we saw glow worms and a big cave weta! 

A fun adventure and it was back to the hostel for the evening where we all watched the news coverage of the two new aftershocks that created more damage in Christchurch. John and I made the smart decision not to stop there!

The next morning, it was off to Wanaka!