Wet n' Wild at the Glacier

Hikes, walks, why not climb a glacier? Lucky for us, there just happens to be a glacier right here in NZ. Unlucky for us, it was raining and wet the whole day, BUT it was still wildly beautiful!

New Zealand is a land o mystery because there is just sooo much diverse landscape and scenery in such a small space. I just can't get enough of it!! One day you are in the forest, the next amongst glaciers, the next amongst mountains and lakes - its soo amazing! Well, after our un-intended day in Greymouth we finally caught up with the Stray bus to head over to Franz Glacier. Stray bus is a hop-on, hop-off type thing (there are other companies such as Kiwi Experience, which is pretty popular, etc). So since its 'winter' here, its slow season so on the bus there are just about 11ish people. With this bus, there is a set route and you pretty much can come and go as you please to places. Since we are on a tight schedule, it worked out the best for us (although we have had some 'wasted' days) to do something like this. Plus, we are always up and ready to meet new people. They people on our bus did turn out to be pretty nice, which is cool. The bus ride to Franz Glacier was beautiful and we passed through many mountains and beautiful crystal clear lakes. Since we are such a small bus, our driver was pretty cool and relaxed with us taking our time to take picts, etc. So all was fine and dandy UNTIL we started approaching Franz G, it just started raining. And raining. And raining. Umm.. it pretty much rained 48 hours straight and all the time we were there. What a bummer! Anyway, we arrived safe and sound, headed to this local restaurant/bar convienently called "Monsoon" with the slogan, "when it rains, we pour." We had a nice dinner and met some nice people (Irish, which is becoming our theme here), and had a good time. We called it an early night because we were doing a 6 hour climb up the glacier that next day.

We awoke to... what else? Cloudy skies. Would it rain? Who knew? We went to the store and got climbing boots, ice spikes, wool socks and gloves, hat, and gortex pants and jackets. I guess that pretty much said what kind of day it would be, cold and rainy. They shuttled us to the glacier and the minute, seriously, the minute we stepped off the bus it started raining and didn't stop till the next day. Trying to keep spirits up, people were still staying positive ("its going to be beautiful!)." We had about a 1/2 hour walk to get to the base of the glacier, then we put on our spikes and off we went! Lauren and I went on the "slower" group... reason being that 1. We didn't want to rush and have the time to enjoy and take picts, and #2. We were already behind with the short 1/2 hour hike! So the glacier hike was a quite a hike, and quite rigorous. We climbed and climbed,

and walked through these 'steps' made by the guides and/or 'glacier men,' as I liked to call them (Franz Josef employees) who were nicely perched at the top of a little climb looking down at us as we huffed and puffed up these steep steps. Early on we had decided to tough it out and do the full day hike because the 1/2 day you had a nice view, but as you climbed further, the glaciers were more pristine and you could see more scenery. And it was true! The coolest part was literally squeezing ourself through these tunnels that was probably just about a foot wide where you had to place one foot in front of the other and kind of shuffle your way through it.

Then here's me ... are we there yet?

If you tried to bring your other leg over, it wouldn't make it. With my broad shoulders, I really had to squeeze my way through (or was it the awesome meals I have been eating lately? ha ha!). That was pretty cool though. The ice blue was amazingly beautiful, as was the view from top. Since it was raining and cold, we literally scarfed down our lunches in about 5 minutes, and off we went again. Here is a pict of me at the top:

And yes, the ice pick was a prop (he he!). All and all, I admit it was a damper with the rain and although the way back I thought would go by quickly, it dragged on. I was soaking wet. When I mean wet, I literally had to wring out my socks and my gloves when we got back. BUT, yes - it was REALLY cool to be climbing a glacier and it was really beautiful! Yes, I'm not going to lie, seeing all the brochures with the sunny sky and people hiking in their shorts was appealing, but still. It was an amazing experience and I loved the exercise (although I was sore the next couple of days. Too bad although I did a 1/2 ironman just 6ish weeks ago, I'm already out of shape!)

Later on that night we went to the same bar and had a REALLY great time because we kept on running into people that we knew, people from the hostel, people from the night before, our roommate, people from our bus. It was kinda fun that we brought all these people together!