New Zealand - Fox Glacier

At 13kms long Fox Glacier is the longest of New Zealand's coastal glaciers with it's peak rising to over 3,000 meters high, it now forms part of the South Westland World Heritage Area. The glacier constantly advances and retreats, held in delicate balance by the accumulation of snow gained in the upper glacier and ice melting in the lower part. Overall Fox Glacier has been advancing since 1985.

We arrived in Fox, found ourselves a cosy little hostel for the next few nights and went to go and book our glacier hike for the following day. It turns out we were sharing a dorm room with two aussies (Sarah and Steve) who were also doing the glacier hike so we were all up early the next morning for hearty hikers breakfast and making our packed lunches. We headed over to the hike centre to get kitted out with boots, thick socks, hat, gloves, rain jacket and cramptons to attach to our boots when we reached the glacier - we looked like extra's from Touching the Void.

It was a short bus ride to the glacier where we were spilt into two groups of 12. After an initial hour long hike through the forest we were ready to get onto the glacier so we all stopped to get some extra layers on and most importantly attach our Cramptons. Our guide was a guy called Chris who was really knowledgeable so as we were walking to the glacier he enlightened us to all the geography behind the glacier and its movements.

Fox Glacier

We had decided to do the day long hike as we've done alot of walking on our travels and it meant we got to go higher onto the glacier for better views and ice quality. It felt pretty weird at first as you are literally just walking on ice but Chris had told us how to use the Cramptons effectively so we didn't slip all over the place. There were pre-cut steps for the majority of the path's we used in the morning up until lunch time.

Chris cutting our path

After lunch it got alot more exciting as Chris used his pick-axe to cut our path as we walked - we were proper off roading. The views were amazing and the ice alot better quality, it has a really nice light blue shine to it, a result of it being so tightly compact - I suppose that is where the term ice-blue comes from. Chris took us on a walk through some really narrow crevasses which was really cool (literally) they were really narrow and cold (obviously) but an excellent experience. There were also really deep natural crevasses which you had to be really careful to not slip down otherwise you could get trapped and die.

The hat isn't mine!

In the Crevass

We all made it back safe and sound and abit tired after a long day and celebrated with a few Speight's.

The TranzAlpine

The following morning we got the bus to Greymouth so we could ride the TranzAlpine to Christchurch. The TranzAlpine is regarded as one of the most scenic journey's in New Zealand crossing from the West coast to the East. We travelled through the fields of the Canterbury Plains, spectacular gorges and river valley's of the Waimakariri River and climbed the Southern Alps. It was a welcome change to the bus and well worth the $$$'s invested.

Christchurch
where's da Craic at?

The largest of the south islands cities, we hoped it would be hardcore party time in Christchurch. We've searched high and low but to no avail - no Craic was not to be had. We have whiled the past few days away with a combination of city tours, walks up more mountains and trips to the cinema. Today we ventured as far as Hanmer on a day trip to the thermal pools and spent hours sitting in 41 degree sulphur pools until we felt faint - now we just smell of rotten eggs.

Our next stop - Kaikoura.