Franz Josef Glacier

Me coming out of the tunnel

One of the most thrilling/ frightening experiences of my life!

The journey to Franz Josef was a long and tiring one but I kept myself awake on redbull leftover from nye. First we stopped at the historical town of 'Ross' ;) . This is a town that was famous for a goldrush in the mid 1800s and you can still do gold panning there today. We went to a little museum and heard the story about how the gold was first discovered by a housewife washing clothes in the river (she found gold stuck to the clothes). After Ross, we stopped several more times at beautiful spots to take pictures (see photos). We were told before we came to NZ, that every time you turn a corner its another 'wow' moment, and it really is. Its like South America all squished in to one little country with the bluest mirror lakes I have ever seen. We arrived at the alpine town of Franz Josef around 2pm, where we had about an hour to get changed before our glacier adventure began!

The company that did it lent us waterproofs, boots and crampons and we were led by a guide on a 5 hour hike onto the Franz Josef glacier. It was SPECTACULAR (again, see photos) and I am so glad I did it. When we were in Argentina, we went to Poreto Moreno glacier, which is one of the world's only remaining advancing glaciers and we had ummed and arred over whether to hike on it there or not but looked online and found that it was a lot cheaper to do it in NZ. I am so glad we waited. The guide was very professional, and pick axed her way along the sheets of ice to make a path for us. We walked slowly in crampons between massive walls of ice, and the absolute highlight came, when we got to a tunnel, that was so narrow it looked too small for a child to pass through We were all going to go through it, the guide said. Well, I am a little claustrophobic and this is definitely the most challenging thing I have ever done. The bungy and the skydive pale into insignificance compared to this! A tall boy went first, to prove that if he could do it, the rest of us could, Then a girl went, and then Jemma, who didn't even lie to me and pretend it was easy. She was lodged inside this extremely tight and cold tunnel of ice and just shouted back – yep this is tight, its very very tight.

Jemma entering the extremely tight tunnel

Oh dear. I pushed myself through after her and got wedged in the tunnel (you can't see the end of the tunnel by the way, it goes up a hill, so you have to squeeze on your belly through the first bit, poking your head through and then you have to push yourself up a narrow tunnel that goes up hill, using your crampons to grip on.). It was terrifying. I got wedged in at the first bit and felt like I couldn't breathe. I looked around at the ice and and the upward tunnel of ice in front of me and actually thought to myself, this is how I am going to die. I couldn't move, I was lodged in, but somehow I managed to take a deep breath and push myself round onto my side so that I could slide my body through. I had to force my way through the icy tunnel using my hands on the sides of the walls but they were so cold and frost bitten, I didn't want to touch the ice, but I had to if I wanted to get out of the tunnel! They kept slipping off the sides and I couldn't move. But somehow, I managed to force myself along and eventually made it out to the top, where there was a rope to pull yourself out. I was so worried there would be an earthquake (the glacier is situated on the border of 2 plates – that is how the mountain range was formed). I was terrified the ice tunnel would collapse in on me. But when it didn't and I made it out the other end, it was the best sense of achievement ever! We carried on with the hike – there was another wider tunnel where you had to climb up some ice with a rope and then we all walked back. (We saw an alpine parrot on the way, which is the only alpine parot in the world. Jemma took more photos of this than of the glacier!) 

All in all, it was an excellent experience and I would highly recommend it!

We got back to the hostel and had beans on toast for tea with Yoshi e (our Japanese friend from Wellington who had gotten back on the Magic bus again with us in Franz Josef!). We sat around chatting to a German couple and a French group, who we showed our skydive and bungy videos to using the free internet allowance we had. Then it was off to bed (another very late night), ready for another very early start.

Photos: South Island Photos