Glaciers galore - Blogabond

Day - 19 Sunday 10th May 2009

An unremarkable stay at Haast, and we moved on reasonably early after panicking a bit as we hadn't got a phone signal and needed to rebook our ferry crossing to North Island, which was due later today. But the internet came to the rescue and an email was all that was needed fortunately.

On up the west coast of South Island, with the Tasman Sea to our left, very close at some points, and the Southern Alps equally close on our right at others. Barbara was driving, which left me free to take photos of some of the hazards we encountered:

And then we found a nice view of the Fox Glacier:

(it's that frozen stream-like thing behind Barbara), and close by was a very typical NZ river, which consists of a wide gravelly bed with a small stream winding through it (this photo is for Clive):

And then after a short drive, and a short walk, we were quite close to the base of the same glacier:

We had to ignore the odd warning sign (as were many others), but were rewarded with an even closer view:

but it wasn't too easy to get right up to the glacier, as this was the province of experienced guided parties, but this was just a few hundred metres away:

Then back into the village of Fox Glacier to go for a ride in a little red:

piloted by Jason:

who flew us up, up, up into the clouds and snowy valleys of the towering mountains above us. After an exciting ascent through rocky snow-filled gorges and over impossibly steep tree-lined slopes, we circled around and landed on one of the few flat areas, thousands of feet up on the Franz Josef Glacier, to be joined shortly after by yet another helicopter:

It was getting positively crowded:

Jason took our photo (I couldn't persuade Barbara to come and had to snuggle up to two other attractive young ladies in the compact helicopter):

And then after some further nice views:

it was getting rather cold (a wind chill of about -15°C) so we took off again and had an equally exciting descent over the same Fox Glacier that we'd walked up to an hour or so before:

Then back to the motorhome to drive a little way further up the coast to Franz Josef Glacier Village where we found our campsite for the night. It has some rather good views. These were all taken just a few metres away from the motorhome:

On northwards tomorrow.

written by

Saros on May 10, 2009 from Fox Glacier, New Zealand

from the travel blog: The Hairy Animal 2009 World Road Trip

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Charles I'm impressed. I think you have more than 100 things to do on before you die list

written by Wanda and George on May 10, 2009

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