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Update 9 - Ice ice baby
Onward with another long drive, this time very rugged countryside, very much like Scotland complete with mist and rain for the morning. ooooh and rent-a-dent managed 140km/ph! Also discovered fun bridges that share train tracks and road, slightly worrying...
Arrived in Franz Joseph Glacier (village) only able to see the base of the glacier for the mist, checked into hotel and then hit pub for our first full on drinking sesh that we've had while in NZ. mmm G&T's, mmm....
The alarm at 6.50am murdered us, but all was cool for we were going ice hiking! Cool as a very cool mule. Well with slightly sore heads we got kitted up for our 3/4 day hike and off we hiked through the bush to the glacier. The glacier is pretty extraordinary as it descends down a very steep valley into the rainforest with its base only 200m above sealevel, which means the thing moves at a wicked rate.
We managed to get the cooler of the 2 guides, called "Horse", a man of few words and up the glacier we went. A team cut steep ice steps into the glacier to get you up the steep terminal face, then you meander around with the guide carrying an ice axe and cutting in new steps as needed. Now I always assumed glaciers were quite smooth and fluffy, how wrong, think big peakd of icy clear-blue merringue style and you get the idea. Awesome. On and up, our group were all pretty fit and so Horse offered to take us up higher to where the day-long groups go, as long as we didn't tell anyone as he'd get into trouble! We of course all jumped at it.
We walked through huge stunning ice crevices each bluer and more stunning, then the best and most scary bit, climbing down a near vertical ice tunnel (not roped on). Horse's advice "don't stuff it up or it will really hurt..." Ali apparently did it like a pro. It really was SWEET AS!
Then after several blatent lies on the radio about our location it was down the glacier, through an ice cave, a couple of hillside bush walks for a laugh and back to the village for beer and mountains of pizza, lush.
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