You all received the update on my timely escape from Christchurch the morning of the earthquake so I will move along to the interesting day of travel and subsequent days glacier treck. I left the Christchurch YHA at 7:20am to board a free shuttle to the Tranzalpine trian station. I boarded the 12 car train after rolling my luggage to the very last car. i was on the second car fromthe front...1st class. Porter?...No...so I was originally in a seat facing backward with a table between a nice couple from the Blur Mountain area of Australia. We chatted about their trip for vacation and mine. Did I mention that I get motion sick just thinking about riding a train for 4.5 hours and now I'm facing backwards to boot. Lord i was never so glad as when the train made the stop in Arthurs Pass and the german tour group disembarked so i could move to a foward facing seat that I had all too myself.
The train goes to Greymouth. It makes about 6-7 stops not all for passenger boarding or departures. Sometimes it stopped int he middle of nowhere just to ensure the tracks were changed I guess by the coal trains that we shared the rails with. Other stops were only to let school childrn off one of the later cars but at a few locations we were actually allowed to disembark for a few minutes. the train has sfood car, snadwiches, coffe, tea, snacks but I brought snacks and water as i thought surely for a 4.5 hr rail excusion I would eat when I reach my destination. Where did I miss that once I arrived in Grymouth that there was another 3+/- hour shuttle bus ride along the coast on a 2 lane, sometimes 1 lane bridge to cross waterways (river/streams). Is't it bad enought to drive on the wrong side of the street let alone coming to a bridge from a 2 lane road to realize the driver either is about to play chicken with oncoming traffic or apply coutesy of first come first serve. these are not highly travled roada s sht eonly traffic are the ever increasing backpacker reantals vans or rental cars and well 1 or 2 RV's. mostly just twisting, turning, coastal view, rock cliffs, narrow laned 2 lane roads, with a few s curves, some climbs, a few dips....How is your stomach? Yeah, thank goodness for the dramamine that i took prior to leaving the Christchurch YHA. The shuttle from the train station is a20 person van with big area in the back for luggage. the seats; small; leg room nil; emotions scared by the news of the earthquake back at Christchurch that most of us had just left, needless to say a long quiet ride into Franz Josef. did I mention that there was a stop of two along the way. One was at a 7-11 type grocery store/diner and we all piled into be glued to the TV above the cash register of the first video's being released after the quake in Christchurch.
back on the bus, we made it into Franz Josef at about 5:45pm. This has been a s long day, hungry, tired and when the bus literally pulls up in fron of a line of store fronts and said well here we are. I was like really, a flight, a train ride and a bus shuttle and you stop here???? We are out in the middle of nowhere. Ok there is a huge glacier peaking out of the corner of the mountain range in front of us but where is the town? It appears that FJ for short is a backpacker/trecker/camper paradise where not many need a town as they dirve, hitchhike, bus or just appear out of the forest and use FJ as a base for climbing the glaciers, hiking in the woord, or well I don't know what the Unibomber did for fun but this could be his type of place. Yikes, what the heck had I gotten myself into. Needless to say my hostel was only about 50meters up the street and then hang a left and another right. Ok it was only about 2 minutes of joy thinking that any moment that some wild animal/human was going to jump out of the woods and nab me. i escaped floods, cyclones, wildfires and earthquakes only to be taken hostage by some woodsman. Hmmm...these are the folks that only bath everyother Saturday and sometimes they skip cause they begin to like the smell? Maybe it was just the excitement of the day that had my senses rattled...just a little.
I located the local grocer, the only grocer and scooped my meal plan for the week. The usual, cereal, bananas, milk, peanut butter, jelly, crackers and energy bars; trail mix and orang juice. As I was making myself a sandwich the girl from the front desk came in and randomly asked if anyone wanted to take a full day gracier trek at 7am in the morning. There were only a few folks in the common area sitting room at the time and when the 7am was mentioned all groaned. The clerk said it was free and was going to be televised by a Japanede film crew. Of course, my favorite word...FREE...my hand shot up and i headed to the front desk to meet the Japanese producer. He knew a little English and drove me over to the Glacier hike headquarters...ok He backed his jeep the 2 driveways over and parked in front of the tour shop.
i was given the 5 minute spiel of preparation, no denim, The tour operator will provide: hat, gloves, wool socks, boots, spikes, jacket, trousers and the guide. My guide is Japanese, named Tai (pronounced TY) who has been guiding tours of the Franz Josef glacier for about 4 years. The film crew is filming a documentary about the Japanese expat who is working in New Zealand. Let me just tell you (pics to follow as there are internet limitations with the local connection...surprise) how incredibly awesome the full day treck was. After meeting at 7am at the tour operator shop, there ended up being 7 on the tour (3 Korean , 2 girls and a guy a very tall 19 yr old girl of dutch descent from the Netherlands, a couple of New York jews and I say that with love but the husband was one of those, we have visited 100 countries, have you been to well we have and we did this or that, do you like well we know a great place in NYC....droned on all day until he got stuck in an ice hole. We all silently voted to leave him there, myself, two guides (Tai, Japan and Trevor, Aussie) and the Japanese film crew ( camera, director, producer). We all suited up and headed for the bus out front. We drove about 20 minutes to the trail head and were dumped at the head of the trail. We marched thru a bit of a rain forest, fortunately it was not raining when we left as it had poured all day the day before and made the 1/2 day tour one of my roommates attended dreadful, as the ice was slick, drenched to the bone, head to foot, cold, and the vienw was obscurred by the low clouds and rain. They paid alot of money for not much fun.
We trooped single file accross what appeared to be broken slate type rock that must have falled off the towering sides of the glacier canyon. We didn't at first see any glacier or ice just rock and beatiful greenery on the canyon walls. We wer led over to the ice stream of melted ice rushing by where there were large chuncks of ice in the stream and it at places looked like a big bag of cocktail ice. The majesty of Mother Nature is awesome. The weather turned to a light mist as wer continued up to the glacier itself. There was a roped off area that not tour guided treckers are to stop. From this point the glacier is within sight and it is an increidible sight. The colors of blue, white, almost green, the dirt at the tips of the some of the ice gave a whole new look to the ice sculpture. They really did look like they were eaither chipped as they were very rough or even smoothed to be ..well I'm not sure there are words. It was just amazing that this chunck of ice was actually moving at an incredibly slow pace down the mountain. Our Trou Leader was great in stopping from time to time to talk about the incredible clifs and where the ice was actually up to abot 50-100 years ago. Yes, my friends global warming is real and is affecting the ice eco system. there were not a bird or living animal seen or heard the whole time we wer on the ice. I actaully asked if we would encounter any wildlfe, like polar bears, kangaroos, kiwis....not a chance he said but maybe a wild goat or deer. there is an open shooting season on the wild goats as they negatively affect the eco system.
I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
