We arrived late in the afternoon at Franz Josef and wasted no time in booking up a Glacier climb for the next day.
We choose the 3/4 day climb as it promised more blue ice than the half day climb plus that we would reach an Ice fall within the glacier.
The day started with a quick saftey and gear brief and then a 45 minute hike through streams and across rocks to the base of the glacier. Here we strapped on our talons to our boots and began climbing up the river of ice.
It was an amazing experience and very fun squeezing and sliding through narrow passage ways with deep blue ice on either side, climbing up and down ice steps expertly carved out by our guide as we went and manouvering up to high alpine plateaus by hauling oursleves up ropes when the steps got really steep.
Once back down on the ground and the hike complete we could feel the pain and agony begining in our leg muscles and decided to spend an extra day in Franz Josef to recover, and boy did we need it!
The next day we limped into the car and drove over to the Fox Glacier and hike as far as the weather would allow us towards the bottom of the glacier. Unfortunately it had rained very heavily the night before and we didn't think our own trainers would hold up very well if we hiked through the cold rivers and streams flowing down from the mountains. We then spent the rest of the day trying to warm back up and rest our aching legs.
On the 6th we then headed further up the West coast of New Zealand to Punakaiki, home of the pancakes rocks.
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