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Arrived in Franz Joseph after quite an epic journey in the rain. This is home to a glacier which is made more unusal because of its proximaty to a rain forest.
We braved the weather and booked onto the half day hike onto the glacier. They supplied walking boots, socks, waterproof trousers, raincoat and crampons, so we were well prepared.. weren't we?
At least 4 times we were all asked if we had our crampons so how was it that after 2 hours treking to a certain point on the glacier where we were all shown how to put our crampons on before stepping onto the real ice, someone announces that they don't have any crampons!!! Marvellous, there we are in terrential rain all trying to tie up our crampons with freezing hands, only to have to wait around whilst the poor guide rushes off to the next group to try and get some more crampons. When he gets back he checks us all that we have ours on right, and low and behold half the group of 16 need to do theirs again ... it was excrutiating hanging around freezing cold... why doesn't anybody listen!!!! The result was that we only got about 40minutes on the actual glacier which at the time was plenty given that we were all nearly hyperthermic by this stage. The glacier however, was beautiful because the rain had cleaned it and created many crevis'. It was such a beautiful blue colour contrasting against the white. Quite special. I was on the glacier a month before in the middle of a drought and it wasn't very impressive. Very dirty and not nearly so interesting to look at. So every cloud has a silver lining I guess
Stayed at Base hostel in Franz Joseph and bumped into Tom and Dom AGAIN!
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Yvonne Am I missing something but who the hell is Tom and Dom AND more importantly were they OK about you bumping into them!!!? There is always one or two right Dingbats hey! But you made it - didn't freeze to death and wow I bet is was wonderful experience. Hope you are taking loads of pics! KEEP HAVING FUN!!!! Yx