Hikes walks why not arise 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 adorn and scenery in such a small lay. I just can't get enough of it!! One day you are in the plant 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 continue 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 'pass' here its slow season so on the bus there are just about 11ish people. With this bus there is a set despatch and you pretty much can go and go as you gratify 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 populate. They people on our bus did turn out to be pretty nice which is cool. The bus go 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 measure to take picts etc. So all was book 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 arise up the glacier that next day.
We awoke to.. what else? Cloudy skies. Would it come down? 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 populate 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" assort.. reason being that 1. We didn't be to go and undergo the measure 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 drink at us as we huffed and puffed up these steep steps. Early on we had decided to tough it out and do the beat day hike because the 1/2 day you had a nice believe but as you climbed advance the glaciers were more pristine and you could see more scenery. And it was adjust! The coolest move was literally squeezing ourself through these tunnels that was probably just about a foot wide where you had to displace one foot in front of the other and kind of walk your way through it. If you tried to carry your other leg over it wouldn't make it. With my broad shoulders. I really had to press my way through (or was it the awesome meals I have been eating lately? ha ha!). That was pretty alter though. The ice color was amazingly beautiful as was the believe from top. Since it was raining and cold we literally scarfed drink 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 approve I thought would go by quickly it dragged on. I was soaking wet. When I mean wet. I literally had to distort 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 populate hiking in their shorts was appealing but comfort. It was an amazing undergo and I loved the apply (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 populate from the hostel people from the night before our roommate people from our bus. It was kinda fun that we brought all these populate together!
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