Friday November 22
Today our itinerary took us on a train trip aboard the Trans Alpine to Greymouth. The train ride is touted as one of the top 10 most beautiful train rides in the world, and it lived up to its reputation. From the plains of the Canterbury into the Southern Alps and Arthur's Pass, the views were astounding. The only things which would have made it better is if there had been more snow on the ground, and if we had gotten more sleep so we didn't intermittently doze during the ride.

From Greymouth, we boarded a coach bus to travel to Franz Josef Glacier. We were initially a little worried as our itinerary listed this as a 3.5 bus ride, but we took a 45 minute lunch break in the middle at Hokitika which broke up the journey nicely.

We got into Franz Josef right around 5:00 and checked in at the Punga Motor Lodge. To our surprise we had been booked into one of their luxury suites, complete with heated floors, a gas stove, a full kitchenette, a leather couch, and a mirror which didn't fog over when we took a shower. The backyard porch looked onto rainforest; and if we hadn't just been at Coconut Beach Resort, we would have been very impressed.

We went downtown to look at our options for the next day and eventually decided to take a heli-hike tour. While it was pretty expensive, it took you a place that was otherwise inaccessible: a helicopter ride to the top of the glacier. From there, guides took you on a two hour trek through the top of the glacier. The tour was dependent on the weather, and it was raining when we booked it. They said conditions sometimes changed quickly, but they only charged us if they took us up, and if the helicopters were grounded, there was a half day hike we could still go on.

Our plans for the next day settled, we celebrated Thanksgiving by getting a pizza at Landing Cafe. We got half meat combination and half margarita pizza. The meat half was decent but the other half was mostly tasteless. Afterwards Suzy went to sleep while I caught up somewhat on the blog and pictures.

Saturday November 23
We woke up in time to get breakfast back at the Landing Cafe since they gave us coupons for free tea. Afterwards we checked in at our heli-hike tour. The 9:30 flight had been cancelled, as was the noon one we were scheduled for. We booked a tour for the last flight of the day at 2:30. Since we had some free time, we chilled out for the Internet cafe and I updated our blog. At 1:45 we checked in and the last flight had also been cancelled. We signed up for the half-day hike and went back to our room for a midday snack.

At 3:00 we checked in for our hike. That may sound a little late, but the sun had set around 9:30 the last night, so we knew there would be plenty of sunlight. We got our gear, including a raincoat, gloves, hats, hiking boots, and crampons, boarded a bus and headed to the glacier. We hiked the last couple miles in and then put on our crampons and ascended the glacier.

The guided hike had around 45 people, but they split us into four groups. We were initially debating whether to be in the first or second group, but because few people were self-selecting to be in the first group, we decided to join that one. We put on our crampons and our guide started taking us up the glacier. Our guide had a pick-axe and every so often he would have to use it to smooth out part of the trail. We found out that the glacier shifts at night, so each day they would have to carve out a new trail.

We ascended some pre-made ice steps where they had spiked in ropes to help us climb. At one point, we crossed through a crevasse which was barely wider than my chest. We had to shuffle our feet while moving sideways to get through it.

Eventually the trail got rougher and at one point the guide stopped. He told us to wait, as he had to go see what was on the other side of the trail he was carving out. It was at that point we realized that we weren't just hiking along a pre-defined path -- we were climbing where no one previously gone, and our guide was creating a trail for us as he went along. We climbed like this for about two hours, wending our way up the glacier.

Right at the peak of our hike we got a visitor -- a Kea, which is a parrot native to Zealand, flew up close to us and began to run around. Evidently they are quite a pest in New Zealand, as they are about as smart as a three year old and just as prone to getting into trouble. We had heard reports of the Kea killing sheep, which I was dubious about, but looking at the Kea entry at Wikipedia it seems to be documented. We were rimomg out of time so we once again descended.

After we got back to town, we went across the street to the Blue Ice Cafe for dinner. Suzy wanted better pizza than the one we had the day before, so we ordered another pizza with meat and other stuff. A couple from Canada who had hiked along with us on our guided tour came in, and we chatted with them for a while before calling it a night.

 

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