Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Monday, August 10, 2009
An Iceberg Is Not A Glacier!!
Next we were on our way to Franz Josef! In New Zealand, there are two extremely unique glaciers – Franz Josef glacier and Fox glacier – unique due to the environment surrounding them. Both glaciers, while entirely made of ice themselves, are surrounded not only by typical snow-capped mountains, but also by lush rainforests; which you can see in many of our pictures.
However, first we drove through really thick forest and stopped off at Lake Mahinapua, a lake which marks the meeting point of the Hokitika glacier and the Tasman Sea. Many of the lakes in this area of New Zealand’s south island are formed due to the melting of glaciers – the water runs off to form large rivers and streams.
Once we arrived in Franz Josef that night, we heard that the weather wasn’t the greatest for going up on the glacier for a heli-hike. A heli-hike was our original plan for the glacier – so much hiking and walking had gotten us both exhausted, and I thought it would be a nice change to be lazy and get flown up to the top of the glacier. Thus we immediately decided to hang around a few extra days and see if the weather would clear up. Henk got us a great discount, since we were staying for a while, and we decided to relax for a few days.
I hadn’t been feeling the greatest since we arrived in Franz Josef, but thankfully, Henk noticed and planned a special evening for us the next night. That night, Henk asked me to get dressed up nice and to just follow him. :D When we first drove in, my eyes had lit up at the Indian restaurant in town, excited about the chance at another butter chicken. When we arrived, we sat down and almost immediately a Diet Coke was placed in front of me… but the waiter hadn’t even given us menus yet! Apparently, earlier in the day Henk had gone to the Indian place and pre-ordered our entire meal!! Butter chicken and garlic naan, my favorites, were delivered straight to the table without me asking for a thing.
After some mango ice-cream dessert, Henk let me know that the night’s surprises were not complete yet. We left the restaurant and started walking in the direction back to our hostel. However, rather than turning into the hostel, we turned right instead, and headed into a large building. I quickly realized that we were at the Glacier Hot Pools! Henk thought spending time in the pools would help relax me a bit. Earlier, he had booked us an awesome outdoor private pool, situated in our own private section surrounded by rainforest and the stars up above. Complete with your own sauna and showers, the pool fills up automatically with Jacuzzi-hot water and starts bubbling! After 45-minutes, the pool drains itself, so there is no need to do anything but sit back and relax. We used our pool time wisely, and then spent another hour exploring the 3 larger (and hotter!) pools – since by now it was around 9 pm; we literally had the place to ourselves!
Each morning we attempted to go on our heli-hike. Around 10 am, we were supposed to check in and ask if the helicopters were going to be flying. However, for the past couple of weeks the weather had been pretty bad. So, rather than doing our hike either of the next mornings, we worked instead. Finally some work is available for us! While making some lunch in the kitchen the previous morning, we spotted a sign at the hostel advertising the possibility to ‘work for accommodation.’ Since we had nothing else to do— the area around Franz Josef (also the name of the town) is pretty small—we opted to work. Working at the hostel for 2 hours gets you free accommodation (per person) and working for 4 hours gets you free dinners up to $20 at the bar. Sounded good to us! 4 hours of work for free lodging and meals? Couldn’t be that bad; might as well save some money.
Thus the next two mornings we spent time stripping and changing beds, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming and sweeping up the bar area. Henk taught me how to change a duvet cover – the first time he did it, it looked like a magic trick! Keep the cover inside out, find the cover’s corners, then grab the duvet’s corners, flip the entire thing and shake it out… looked cool! But what can I say; it was a much better method than mine: which was holding open the duvets’ cover while trying to squash the duvet in, resulting in a large bag with a giant lump at the bottom. Not exactly ideal! In total, we ended up working for three nights’ accommodation and one night’s meals; so that night, we savored our Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken sandwich knowing we earned it!
Finally, we reached the end of our time in Franz Josef. It was Thursday, and neither of us felt like staying much longer working in a town where we had done almost everything there was to do. Already booked onto the Stray bus for Saturday morning, and booked into a hostel in Wanaka for the next nights, we were stuck. We had to make a decision: risk another day of bad weather and a canceled heli-hike (meaning we do nothing on the glacier at all), or book ourselves on for a full day glacier hike (meaning lots of walking!) Not wanting to risk missing the glacier completely, we booked ourselves for the full day.
The next morning, we got dressed and headed to the company that was taking us to the glacier… a bit early. We had booked onto the glacier hike starting at 9:15 am, but we had received a card telling us to be there at 8:15 am! Unsure, we arrived at 8:15 and had to wait around for a while before getting our gear – over-trousers and crampons—and jumping on the glacier bus. But ahhh, we looked up at the sky! The weather looked really good for that day, and we found out later that a few heli-hikes were able to take off that day. Grrrr… I was a bit disappointed, but hey, that means more walking for us! Let the heli-hikers keep their flabbiness. :D
The hike started off with a 10 minute walk through the forest, arriving at a large dried-up lake. During particularly rainy periods, the area we took about 40 minutes walking through would be completely filled with water. Before jumping on the glacier itself, we were divided up into 4 groups of 11 people. Our guide was nicknamed Bushman, and he carried an ice axe with him to carve out our path (since the ice changed regularly) as we hiked along.
Franz Josef glacier was found by the Austrian explorer/scientist Julius von Haast, who named it after the Austrian Emperor at the time. The glacier, being in an unusually warm climate as evidenced by the bright surrounding rainforest, melted quickly – at about a meter to a meter and a half per day. While you would think this would lead to a disappearing glacier rather quickly, the strange weather in the area snowed enough that the glacier also grew at the same rate daily; thus remaining a ‘moving but stable’ glacier.
Once at the face of the glacier, we stopped to tie on our crampons (Ok, Henk clarifies that he tied both of ours) before continuing on the ice. The first part we climbed through was an area filled with rocks on top of the ice. Rocks fall down from the mountains on either side of the glacier onto the ice at the top, and then they slide down to the face of the glacier, thus creating our tough terrain.
Around 12:00 PM, we stepped onto the first area of pure ice. The view was amazing – snow-covered mountains, waterfalls in the distance, and ice walls which slowly got larger around us the deeper we walked. Some of our trail had steps pre-carved in the ice for us, with ropes for us to use anchored on the sides, but sometimes Bushman had to use his axe and create the path for us to continue. The 8:15 am group before us even got stuck trying to create a new path, wasting an hour before turning back to use previous paths instead. As a result of many stops to wait for new paths, we got to take a ton of great pictures with the glacier!
After having a rather cold lunch on the ice, we continued on to explore for ice caves and tunnels. At 1:30 pm, we finally found one. Everyone stood over the small tunnel going through the ice, discussing sliding through it. When our guide asked if anyone wanted to give it a shot, Henk caught my eye looking extremely excited. I knew from his expression that he was dying to see me slide through it! To his surprise, I walked towards the tunnel entrance and volunteered myself to give it a try by jumping in!
Before I slid down, the guide suggested I take off my gloves so they wouldn’t get soaked by the ice-water dripping in the tunnel. I agreed, and yanked off the mittens I had on. Because of the cold, I had been wearing two pairs of gloves – my purple gloves, and grey mittens on top of them. It didn’t occur to me that no one in the group watching knew I had two sets of gloves on. Laughter erupted from the crowd when they saw me pull off the top pair of gloves, revealing a second layer underneath! I slid through, then Henk and I took pictures while waiting for everyone else to take their turn going through.
Henk even got a picture of Monkey and Puppy on the glacier! Our guide Bushman stepped into the shot, showing his Bushman smile. We slid ourselves through awfully narrow crevasses, getting completely soaked in the process – thank God for waterproof jackets and pants! Still, I alone went through all 4 pairs of gloves we had purely from sliding them along these wet, narrow walls. In some places, the crevasses were less than a foot in width, and around 50 meters long with huge ice-water puddles on the floor of the crevasse. Yes, I stepped in a couple of those!
Finally, we saw the light! 3:30 PM found us at the top of our glacier climb for the day. Once we were at the top of the glacier, having seen everything, I realized I had been a bit confused about glaciers. Even though the hike itself was interesting, amazing scenery and fun ice ‘sculptures’ to explore, I was still left slightly disappointed. Henk, listening to my downbeat glacier comments, joked that maybe when we got to the top, we’d discover the ice-making machine the tour company must be using! We took a zigzag path back down the glacier, went through the dried-up lake and forest, and got on the bus which returned us to our hostel. That night, we ate more Indian food, watched the movie King Arthur, and quickly fell fast asleep.
The next day on the bus, Henk and I discussed our hike from the day before, and I quickly realized why I had been a bit disappointed. The glacier ‘image’ I had in my mind was basically an iceberg: a huge pyramid of freestanding ice, similar in shape to the snow-capped mountains we had been seeing. ‘That’s not a glacier!’ He explained, his eyes wide realizing I hadn’t understood. He pointed at Fox glacier in front of us – ‘That part, in between the mountains, that is the glacier.’ I looked at Fox glacier, at the strip of ice running between the two mountains. It looked like an easy skiing hill; overall, once I realized which part was actually the glacier, I wasn’t too impressed! And I didn’t feel so bad about saving some $ by not doing the heli-hike… a glacier is not remotely as cool as an iceberg! I’ll save the heli-hike for when we find an iceberg or something cooler! :D
Francesca
However, first we drove through really thick forest and stopped off at Lake Mahinapua, a lake which marks the meeting point of the Hokitika glacier and the Tasman Sea. Many of the lakes in this area of New Zealand’s south island are formed due to the melting of glaciers – the water runs off to form large rivers and streams.
Once we arrived in Franz Josef that night, we heard that the weather wasn’t the greatest for going up on the glacier for a heli-hike. A heli-hike was our original plan for the glacier – so much hiking and walking had gotten us both exhausted, and I thought it would be a nice change to be lazy and get flown up to the top of the glacier. Thus we immediately decided to hang around a few extra days and see if the weather would clear up. Henk got us a great discount, since we were staying for a while, and we decided to relax for a few days.
I hadn’t been feeling the greatest since we arrived in Franz Josef, but thankfully, Henk noticed and planned a special evening for us the next night. That night, Henk asked me to get dressed up nice and to just follow him. :D When we first drove in, my eyes had lit up at the Indian restaurant in town, excited about the chance at another butter chicken. When we arrived, we sat down and almost immediately a Diet Coke was placed in front of me… but the waiter hadn’t even given us menus yet! Apparently, earlier in the day Henk had gone to the Indian place and pre-ordered our entire meal!! Butter chicken and garlic naan, my favorites, were delivered straight to the table without me asking for a thing.
After some mango ice-cream dessert, Henk let me know that the night’s surprises were not complete yet. We left the restaurant and started walking in the direction back to our hostel. However, rather than turning into the hostel, we turned right instead, and headed into a large building. I quickly realized that we were at the Glacier Hot Pools! Henk thought spending time in the pools would help relax me a bit. Earlier, he had booked us an awesome outdoor private pool, situated in our own private section surrounded by rainforest and the stars up above. Complete with your own sauna and showers, the pool fills up automatically with Jacuzzi-hot water and starts bubbling! After 45-minutes, the pool drains itself, so there is no need to do anything but sit back and relax. We used our pool time wisely, and then spent another hour exploring the 3 larger (and hotter!) pools – since by now it was around 9 pm; we literally had the place to ourselves!
Each morning we attempted to go on our heli-hike. Around 10 am, we were supposed to check in and ask if the helicopters were going to be flying. However, for the past couple of weeks the weather had been pretty bad. So, rather than doing our hike either of the next mornings, we worked instead. Finally some work is available for us! While making some lunch in the kitchen the previous morning, we spotted a sign at the hostel advertising the possibility to ‘work for accommodation.’ Since we had nothing else to do— the area around Franz Josef (also the name of the town) is pretty small—we opted to work. Working at the hostel for 2 hours gets you free accommodation (per person) and working for 4 hours gets you free dinners up to $20 at the bar. Sounded good to us! 4 hours of work for free lodging and meals? Couldn’t be that bad; might as well save some money.
Thus the next two mornings we spent time stripping and changing beds, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming and sweeping up the bar area. Henk taught me how to change a duvet cover – the first time he did it, it looked like a magic trick! Keep the cover inside out, find the cover’s corners, then grab the duvet’s corners, flip the entire thing and shake it out… looked cool! But what can I say; it was a much better method than mine: which was holding open the duvets’ cover while trying to squash the duvet in, resulting in a large bag with a giant lump at the bottom. Not exactly ideal! In total, we ended up working for three nights’ accommodation and one night’s meals; so that night, we savored our Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken sandwich knowing we earned it!
Finally, we reached the end of our time in Franz Josef. It was Thursday, and neither of us felt like staying much longer working in a town where we had done almost everything there was to do. Already booked onto the Stray bus for Saturday morning, and booked into a hostel in Wanaka for the next nights, we were stuck. We had to make a decision: risk another day of bad weather and a canceled heli-hike (meaning we do nothing on the glacier at all), or book ourselves on for a full day glacier hike (meaning lots of walking!) Not wanting to risk missing the glacier completely, we booked ourselves for the full day.
The next morning, we got dressed and headed to the company that was taking us to the glacier… a bit early. We had booked onto the glacier hike starting at 9:15 am, but we had received a card telling us to be there at 8:15 am! Unsure, we arrived at 8:15 and had to wait around for a while before getting our gear – over-trousers and crampons—and jumping on the glacier bus. But ahhh, we looked up at the sky! The weather looked really good for that day, and we found out later that a few heli-hikes were able to take off that day. Grrrr… I was a bit disappointed, but hey, that means more walking for us! Let the heli-hikers keep their flabbiness. :D
The hike started off with a 10 minute walk through the forest, arriving at a large dried-up lake. During particularly rainy periods, the area we took about 40 minutes walking through would be completely filled with water. Before jumping on the glacier itself, we were divided up into 4 groups of 11 people. Our guide was nicknamed Bushman, and he carried an ice axe with him to carve out our path (since the ice changed regularly) as we hiked along.
Franz Josef glacier was found by the Austrian explorer/scientist Julius von Haast, who named it after the Austrian Emperor at the time. The glacier, being in an unusually warm climate as evidenced by the bright surrounding rainforest, melted quickly – at about a meter to a meter and a half per day. While you would think this would lead to a disappearing glacier rather quickly, the strange weather in the area snowed enough that the glacier also grew at the same rate daily; thus remaining a ‘moving but stable’ glacier.
Once at the face of the glacier, we stopped to tie on our crampons (Ok, Henk clarifies that he tied both of ours) before continuing on the ice. The first part we climbed through was an area filled with rocks on top of the ice. Rocks fall down from the mountains on either side of the glacier onto the ice at the top, and then they slide down to the face of the glacier, thus creating our tough terrain.
Around 12:00 PM, we stepped onto the first area of pure ice. The view was amazing – snow-covered mountains, waterfalls in the distance, and ice walls which slowly got larger around us the deeper we walked. Some of our trail had steps pre-carved in the ice for us, with ropes for us to use anchored on the sides, but sometimes Bushman had to use his axe and create the path for us to continue. The 8:15 am group before us even got stuck trying to create a new path, wasting an hour before turning back to use previous paths instead. As a result of many stops to wait for new paths, we got to take a ton of great pictures with the glacier!
After having a rather cold lunch on the ice, we continued on to explore for ice caves and tunnels. At 1:30 pm, we finally found one. Everyone stood over the small tunnel going through the ice, discussing sliding through it. When our guide asked if anyone wanted to give it a shot, Henk caught my eye looking extremely excited. I knew from his expression that he was dying to see me slide through it! To his surprise, I walked towards the tunnel entrance and volunteered myself to give it a try by jumping in!
Before I slid down, the guide suggested I take off my gloves so they wouldn’t get soaked by the ice-water dripping in the tunnel. I agreed, and yanked off the mittens I had on. Because of the cold, I had been wearing two pairs of gloves – my purple gloves, and grey mittens on top of them. It didn’t occur to me that no one in the group watching knew I had two sets of gloves on. Laughter erupted from the crowd when they saw me pull off the top pair of gloves, revealing a second layer underneath! I slid through, then Henk and I took pictures while waiting for everyone else to take their turn going through.
Henk even got a picture of Monkey and Puppy on the glacier! Our guide Bushman stepped into the shot, showing his Bushman smile. We slid ourselves through awfully narrow crevasses, getting completely soaked in the process – thank God for waterproof jackets and pants! Still, I alone went through all 4 pairs of gloves we had purely from sliding them along these wet, narrow walls. In some places, the crevasses were less than a foot in width, and around 50 meters long with huge ice-water puddles on the floor of the crevasse. Yes, I stepped in a couple of those!
Finally, we saw the light! 3:30 PM found us at the top of our glacier climb for the day. Once we were at the top of the glacier, having seen everything, I realized I had been a bit confused about glaciers. Even though the hike itself was interesting, amazing scenery and fun ice ‘sculptures’ to explore, I was still left slightly disappointed. Henk, listening to my downbeat glacier comments, joked that maybe when we got to the top, we’d discover the ice-making machine the tour company must be using! We took a zigzag path back down the glacier, went through the dried-up lake and forest, and got on the bus which returned us to our hostel. That night, we ate more Indian food, watched the movie King Arthur, and quickly fell fast asleep.
The next day on the bus, Henk and I discussed our hike from the day before, and I quickly realized why I had been a bit disappointed. The glacier ‘image’ I had in my mind was basically an iceberg: a huge pyramid of freestanding ice, similar in shape to the snow-capped mountains we had been seeing. ‘That’s not a glacier!’ He explained, his eyes wide realizing I hadn’t understood. He pointed at Fox glacier in front of us – ‘That part, in between the mountains, that is the glacier.’ I looked at Fox glacier, at the strip of ice running between the two mountains. It looked like an easy skiing hill; overall, once I realized which part was actually the glacier, I wasn’t too impressed! And I didn’t feel so bad about saving some $ by not doing the heli-hike… a glacier is not remotely as cool as an iceberg! I’ll save the heli-hike for when we find an iceberg or something cooler! :D
Francesca
2 Comments:
amazing!!!!!!
fran... he loves you!!!!!!
gina
ok, ik heb nu alles gelezen.... lekker even gewerkt samen en fran... iceberg - glacier what does it metter.... enjoy!!!!!
gina
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