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Ice Ice Baby!!Â
Glacier hiking is awesome!! Pretty extreme really, crevices and caves to get through, ice steps, the danger of random ice collapses, genius.
We started off in town, i say town but franz josef is really a couple a holiday camps and hostels and a supermarket and petrol station, at the agents where we were given our hiking boots socks and waterproof jackets and spikes. After a 5 mintue drive we were at the carpark set off point ready to go explore the glacier, or so we thought, we actually had a 45 minute walk through a rainforest and along a dry river bed to get to the face! Once there we had a quick rest and a bite to eat whilst fitting our spikes and waiting for our guide to come take us up the ice. My spikes were bust! yey me,  so we had to get these uber spikes out of the reserve tub for me to use, they had inch long spikes, nasty but ridiculous grip! Our guide arrived, Goose, sporting an incredibly envieable mullet, and we started our trek, firstly with some super steep ice steps hacked into the glacier, at least 40 or so until we got to relative flat and started heading more horizontaly.
We steadily made our way higher up the glacier stopping for photos every now and again and a brief history lesson on the glacier from goose. The first extreme bit was a deep crevice we had to go through that was barely wide enough to get through, we had to shuffle one foot in front of the other at times cos there wasnt enough room to bring your feet round in proper steps. The ice was really blue in there and looked really cool! actually it was freezing ha ha ha.
the best part of the hike though came later when we had to climb up through a cave in the ice up to a plateau. This was so fun cos the steps up through were really steep and hard to do and the cave itself was really low, awesome for photos, hopefully mine have come out.
After several hours of exploring the ice it was time to head down, we had started at half ten in town and it was now going half 3 ish. We only got less than a quarter of the way up the glacier itself, up to close viewing distance of the second ice wall of the three, the third was still at the horizon and would have taken 15 solid hours climbing/hiking to get there from the ground! The view was awesome though back down the valley for miles, and we had come a pretty impressive distance as it was mostly uphill and alot of weaving sideways across the glacier.
It was nice to get back to actual solid ground and back to town and dry socks and shoes, and very nice to get into our camper van after dinner and sleep!
After franz josef we headed north again onto a place know as pancake rocks for some photos. The place is a natural phenomenon apparantly, it was pretty amazing to be fair, the formations and caves good for photos. After an hour or so there it was onto our next destination and camping spot at reefton,a really really nice little town with an impressive skatepark. Too tired after a long drive that day, and in need of a good feed and actual meat, we decided to get a pub dinner, and what a great choice we made. We went into the first pub we saw as we both needed the loo. We both ordered rump steak to get some non mcdonalds meat inside us, and who can turn down steak for 16 dollars (about 6 quid)! When it came i think we both pretty much were lost for words, the steaks were the biggest steaks i have ever seen in my life!! they pretty much filled the plate with only a little room left for the chips, seriously around 10 by 7 inch and nice and thick too. They were cooked perfectly too, nice and juicy and not too pink in the middle. Another great sleep was had after that feast.
Hamner Springs was next, a rest and relaxation day, although a bit of a drive from reefton. It was really nice to get into the hot pools after only being able to get slightly crappy and not always warm showers since leaving home. The pools ranged from 35 to 41 degrees, the hotter ones smelled really badly of sulpher though so i preffered to stay in the cooler 37 pools. After a late lunch it was time to head off towards Kaikoura back on the east coast, not before we stopped to play another game of crazy golf!
The drive to kaikoura took another couple of hours, we eventually got camped around 8 ish. Unfortunatly due to the driving and stressful day of lazing in pools we woke up late and missed the morning whale watching trip we wanted to do so we planned to go on the afternoon trip but found it was fully booked which was even more annoying. Instead we went off to the seal colony and took some pictures and had a little walk around there before going off into town to meet up with Steve again who had come across to go surfing. We went and met him at the beach and watched him and a load of locals hit the waves, really impressive waves at that. The beach was really nice, 100% stones, but it had a great view. Kaikoura was a great little place, a good place to stay for a week i think cos theres enough to do there and its also really relaxing just to do nothing.
That evening we set off again on the road to picton where we stayed last night, and had a breif explore today whilst we wait for our ferry across to the north island at around 2 pm.
So next on the trip is a nasty 3 or so hour long ferry to wellington where hopefully we will get to the cinema, then its up up up and hopefully down down down stupidly fast if we pluck up the nerve to skydive at taupo!
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