Ignore the picture to this blog! They don't have a pic of a glacier!
Following te anau, we had an overnight stop in wanaka to break up our long drive to franz josef. It seemed to take forever to drive there! On the way we had a go at clay pigeon shooting! It was great fun! I've never tried it before and managed to break 6 out of 20 clay pigeons! The guy who owned the place said that was good for a first attempt! We also had a stop at the 'blue pools'. They were definitely worth a look, a river and pools with pure turquoise water running through, it was so beautiful - and freezing cold!!
We arrived quite late in franz josef and did some puzzles and played some games! We know how to live it up! We were up early the following morning to do an all day hike on the franz josef glacier! We got kitted up in waterproofs and were given hiking boots and crampons! Steve had had a bad knee so he decided to do the half day hike instead of the full day so it was just the 3 of us on the full day along with a group of others.
We were taken by bus to the glacier and from a distance it didn't look all that special! It looked like dirty snow stuck between 2 mountains. It looked like a short walk to the glacier from where we were dropped off but it was further than it looked! The valley was like an optical illusion making distances seem shorter than they really are. We climbed a rocky hill before putting on our crampons so that we could grip the ice! We were then taught how to walk properly with them on which involved a lot of stomping (obviously I had no problems with that!!).
Beth and me took ice picks to play with along the way, everyone laughed at us when we took them but we had a lot of fun chopping at the ice, they were all jealous then!
2 groups went before us and created steps in the ice so that we could walk properly. Up close the ice was so blue! It was crystal clear and shiny! Walking was easy on the I've with crampons and we were able to use ropes to climb. The ice is moving a metre a day so is always changing. Our guide took us to caves within the ice and tiny little crevasses that we had to climb and squeeze through! David and me couldn't resist licking the ice too!!!! Such children! There were also little rivers on the ice! It was almost like walking on another planet! I managed to fall into a puddle at one point and drop my glove into a little river much to the amusement of the rest of my group!!
By the end of the walk I was absolutely exhausted! It was 6 hours walking on the ice and I hadn't done any exercise for ages!! Such a great trip though!!