Friday, Feb 27 - The Glaciers

Don't cross the yellow rope or you will DIE. We crossed and had a great (safe) adventure.

The path to the glaciers walking through rain forest that opens up to the glacier.

Franz Joseph Glacier.

Artistic Franz Joseph Glacier.

Watch for falling rocks Ken.
Swing bridge at Fox Glacier.
My favorite photo of the whole trip. The glacial mountains (Mt. Cook) in the background.

We went to bed last night to pouring rain. This morning when we woke up the sky was mostly blue and sunny with just a few clouds. Looking out our front window we could see the snowy peak of Mt. Cook. Yes, the weather gods are on our side today.

Today we did Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers, both NZ national parks. These were very unlike visiting a US National park. There was no entrance fee and no crowds! We found a parking space with no problem.

We started at Franz Joseph glacier. There was a nice gravel walking path leading us to the glacier. The start of the path was through a green deciduous rain forest area with lots of ferns and overgrown bushes and trees, which made an archway or tunnel over the path. Shortly we came to a viewing point right at the edge of the glacial river bed. What a view! We could see up the river bed (another very wide gravel river bed with a milky, light blue, river meandering down the middle). The forested path dumped us out onto this gravel river bed leaving us to make our own pathway through it toward the glacier. We trekked our way through gravel and rocks of all sizes, from fine silt and pebbles to rocks the size of half a car, but most were the size of a throw pillow. The striations on most of the rocks were very different than anything I’ve seen in the US. The rocks had thin layers pancaked together. The layers were only about 1/8th inch thick. As the water wore down the layers they wore at different rates leaving the edges of the many of the rocks look like petrified wood. In addition to these rocks, there were also quartz and granite rocks, but all well worn.

The glacier was quite a ways out from where we started walking – maybe two miles. After about a mile we came to a rope across the area with signs warning not to go beyond the rope for fear of falling rocks, high water, and other “hazards.” Most people stopped here and took their share of pictures. From what we could see the area beyond the rope was the same as the area on the “safe” side of the rope. We could see that many people had crossed the rope and ventured closer to the glacier. While we were contemplating whether we should also venture on, a tour group came through and went right on through the rope. The literature we read said the tours take you either up to the terminus of the glacier or onto the glacier. But of course you had to pay big bucks for such special access. The signs did not prohibit access, just warned of dangers, so we proceeded to go beyond the rope. We walked about 1/3 a mile and came to a point where a cliff wall came straight down into the water, so we couldn’t pass through. However we knew the tour groups were getting through, and we had seen them climb up into the wooded/brushy area above the river bed bank. We decided to stop for our picnic lunch on a large flat rock. While eating, a couple people came out of the woods right onto the rock we were sitting on. Well hidden, was a path that lead up into the woods then paralleled the river again. After our lunch we venture up this path. It was more like a small creek with flowing water. We were able to keep our feet dry because plenty of rocks to step on. This was a steep climb up this creek bed. The tour groups had strung climbing ropes from tree to tree along this creek-bed path to assist in climbing up the rocks. After a short while we decided to turn around and head back to the rocky, river bed.

We returned to the car, and it was only 2:00, so we decided to head to Fox Glacier, which is about 10 miles south of Franz Joseph Glacier. At Fox Glacier, they had two entrances – the glacier access or the view. First we went to the “view.” We started down a path through a very damp rain forested area. The brush was do dense we couldn’t see 10 feet into the woods. Trees were dripping with moss. We haven’t been to the Lord of the Rings area yet, but this must be what it is like. Must have been 99% humidity – my hair became one big frizzy curl. After about a half mile of down hill, we came to the glacial river from the Fox Glacier, and an old rickety suspension “swing” bridge over the river. This bridge was more interesting/fun than seeing the glacier. It wasn’t until we got to the other side that a sign said “caution, no more than 5 people on the bridge at a time.” Well, I guess we had to cross back – it didn’t collapse on the first crossing so I guess it wasn’t going to collapse on the way back. Part way back Ken noticed that the suspension cable was very rusted and should be replaced, so he stopped jumping and swinging the bridge.

After this walk we drove to the glacier “access” parking lot. This got us much closer to the Fox Glacier terminus than we could get at the Franz Joseph glacier terminus, so we got a much better look, close up, at a glacier.

After Fox Glacier we stopped in the small village of Fox Glacier for a pizza, early dinner on our way back to our hotel at Franz Joseph village.

It was a beautiful day. I’m not sure how warm it got, but it was t-shirt weather in the sun, and a light sweater was nice in the shade of the rain forest. It’s almost 8:00 pm and I’m sitting on our patio writing this. The sun has not set yet, and I believe will set about 9:00. It has been rising about 7 am.

Note to Robin – the restaurants around here all have gluten free options identified on their menus! And the little grocery store in town has a huge selection of gluten free (rice) crackers.