Franz Josef Glacier (24th Feb)

So after a really horrible night with not a lot of sleep I headed off super early to find somewhere else to stay for the tonight as well as pick up some milk for breakfast. On my way back from the shops I came across the heli-hike office so just popped in to see what was on offer, prices, availability etc etc. Somehow I managed to leave the office 30 seconds later booked onto a heli-hike leaving in 15 mins! Not a great deal of time to think about the whole experience really and with only just about enough time to leave the first hostel and check in to the next one.






The deal is you get around 2 hours hiking on the glacier and far higher up the glacier than you can get if you were just walking from the bottom. I would have preferred to take a plane trip really (perhaps cheaper as well!) but apparently they only land for a few mins before taking off again, I guess it all kinda makes sense really, after all helicopters need less space than planes when taking off and landing huh?!

The helicopter ride was great (although I kinda think my bank managers gonna call a halt to all this heli travel I’m doing, fortunately I didn’t give him the blog address!!) with some fantastic views over the glacier and mountain area before we landed right in the middle of this magnificent glacier. It’s hard to explain quite how huge this thing is really, when you see it from a distance it really doesn’t look so huge, I think because it just looks so unreal, but when you get closer to it you can see how massive it is.

Only if you have really good eyesight can you see all the other people on the glacier hiking but from even a short distance away you can’t really see anyone on it! The terminal mouth of the glacier from a distance looks very small and insignificant, while we were flying over it our helicopter pilot told us that you could fit the helicopter in it, now that’s no small insignificant hole huh?! It is also the point where the melt water exits from the base of the glacier and so there is this huge torrent of milky rapidly travelling water exiting from the base. The water is milky white in colour as a result of the rocks on the valley floor being ground away to just dust as the glacier moves over it, it is a really fascinating process where you can really marvel at mother nature in action.

They kitted us out with boots, coats, over-trousers and crampons, the crampons were so much fun, they meant you could jump all about from ice block to ice block without, generally, hopefully falling over, too much fun.

To actually be way up on the glacier hiking is a really amazing experience, when you’re up close and personal with the ice you really get a chance to see just how huge it all is and then when the guide tells you that we’re actually standing on ice that is about 130m thick you really get an idea of the magnitude.

The guide we had, Dale, was very nice and dressed only in shorts and a t-shirt (!) while we were in hats, gloves, coats, scarves etc, they must grow them hardy in NZ! He was interesting though and knew a lot about the area and the glacier. While we were waiting for our helicopter ride back we were chatting and he was telling me about how he has nearly finished his heli pilots license and how he had bought some land nearby and was planning to build his own home, it was almost beginning to sound a bit like an invite and if it was............. mmm well I’d have sent a postcard home! :-)

After the hike and once we were back in the village I did some local walks up to and around the glacier area independently which was safe to do, it was nice to get a different perspective on the area and from a different view.

Tomorrow I’m planning on heading out of town southwards again.