Awaking to brilliant sunshine, we climbed into the helicopter which took off over snow-capped mountains and landed on the ice-tipped glacier of Franz Josef, reflecting the clear blue skies above. Then we woke up. The morning of our heli-hike to the glaciers was grey and it was raining so hard it had woken us up at 4am. Helicopter trip cancelled - boo. We were desperate to see the glacier having run out of time to see them in Argentina, so we signed up for the half day
glacier hike instead.
We were really lucky with the weather with the rain and wind clearing by the time we got to the glacier - an amazing sight, like an ice river snaking inbetween the mountains towards ground. And what a hike it was! We climbed for an hour up the ice using steps our guides were cutting out of the face of the glacier - vertical in places but our talonz gripped brilliantly. It was an incredible world up there with the imposing ice walls surrounding us so thickly it was the colour of spearmint in places. Amazingly, after the 4 hour hike we found ourselves at ground level walking through lush rainforests - apparently this is only the case at 3 glaciers in the world: Franz Josef, Fox Glacier (also in NZ) and Argentina.
In the evening we thought we would make a start on the 4 hour journey to Wanaka (our base for snowboarding - yippee) so drove until night fell and then 'free' camped by the side of Lake Paringa. It was cold without the electric hook-up but we're hard-core now after our day's glacier walking experience!
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