NZ Long Drive and Franz Josef Glacier (Monday, February 15)
After an early breakfast (including eggs and bacon today), we packed up from our A-frame cottage and were on the road again. This morning was a long drive (several hours) up the west coast to the town of Franz Josef, stopping along the way several times for some sightseeing. One special place was a nice walk on a beach at Ship Creek. There are always interesting things to photograph on a beach, so you’ll see several of those types of pics.
Lunch was at very nice spot on Lake Matheson with a fabulous view of Cox Glacier. Katie told us there are over 3,000 glaciers in New Zealand. Wow!
Then it was back in the bus and off to Franz Josef. We arrived in time to do a drive-through of our accommodations for the next two nights (Rainforest Retreat), then those of us who chose the heli-hike (7 of 12 of us) headed back to where we’d start this adventure.
We filled in release forms and got weighed (they do weight balancing to ensure the helicopters fly evenly), then we went to the room where we picked up waterproof coats (more like large windproof shells), socks, and boots. The boots come with a bag that has crampons (essentially, ice picks for your boots) in it that we put on after we get on the glacier.
All outfitted, we rather sweat in place for a while before it was our turn to head to the helicopters. Gayle and I were sitting next to each other so I got a quick selife of us. It was Gayle’s first time in a helicopter and she was really enthralled (or at least she kept saying “wow!”, “wow!”, “wow!”). My father and mother were both helicopter pilots and we had use of a helicopter for some family trips, so it wasn’t new to me–but I still love it.
The ride up to the glacier was fabulous. We got not only the view on the way up, but the pilot did a circle so we went up and over the glacier, then came back and landed. After getting off the helicopter, we moved away a bit and got a lesson in how to put the crampons on so we’d be more secure walking on the ice. This was actually not too difficult, though the actual walking took a bit of practice.
Rebecca was our guide for the couple of hours walk on the glacier. She used her ice ax to carve out steps in places where the going got a little treacherous and was very patient in letting us stop for photo ops. She even let us borrow her ax for one picture so we could pretend we were experienced hikers!
While we were on the glacier, we saw two small avalanches. The first one was a really big crack, then we saw all the snow come down. This was on the left side of the big rock in the middle. Second avalanche wasn’t quite as dramatic (no big crack), but we heard and saw the snow slide. This was all in an area we didn’t get close to, so it was all good.
We were among the last groups off the ice, so things had thinned out a bit by the time we finished the (again fabulous) helicopter ride down. Once we turned in all our gear, Diana and I walked the 10-minutes or so to our hotel. By this time, Katie had put our bags in our rooms, so we had all of our stuff.
First order of business–hot tub! Then shower and a trip off to the restaurant for dinner. After dinner, a long fight with slow internet access, but I got one day’s worth uploaded, along with a quick catch-up on email. I generally do these write-ups on the same day as the adventure, but the time got so late that I decided to wait. So I’m writing this the next day and will see if I can get enough access to upload it. Then I’ll start on what we did today!
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