Franz Josef, South Island, New Zealand

1st December – 5th December 2017

When we boarded the bus at Hokitika, we had to sit separately on the bus, as it was so busy, there weren’t two seats together. It didn’t matter too much though, because of course, once we got going, Joe fell asleep, so even if I sat next to him, I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to. The journey to Franz Josef was only a couple of hours, so we arrived just after 5 and were luckily dropped off right outside our hostel.

We checked into the hostel and were directed to our room. When we got to the room, we chose our beds, but the layout made everything so crowded and there was no where to put our bags. I sat on my bed and there was a horrible damp, musty smell – I wasn’t very impressed with the room, but we did have a privacy curtain over each bed, which was a nice touch. We went to reception to ask about upgrading to a new room, but it was $170 per night and we weren’t willing to pay that, so we were stuck with that room.

As we had arrived in the early evening, we didn’t really have much to do before dinner, so we just chilled out for a bit. The hostel provided free soup from 6pm, in the lodge area, so we sat up there for a little bit and tried a bit of the soup. At around 7, I made the dinner, although I didn’t really have to make much, as we were having the hot pot that I had made earlier in the day in Hokitika, so I just had to heat it up.

After dinner, we chilled out for a bit, and watched some Netflix, before going to bed. Approximately twenty seconds after getting into bed, Joe’s head popped through my curtain: he was complaining that there was a ‘huge moth’ next to his head and he couldn’t sleep, so he wanted to get into my bed. There wasn’t a chance that that was going to happen, so I told him to just go to sleep. About twenty more seconds passed by before I heard a smack, as he had whacked it with his flip flop, which he then had to climb down to get rid of.

The next morning, we didn’t have too much of an early start, which was nice. We had breakfast included in the price, and that finished at 9, so we had to make sure that we were up in time to enjoy that before they packed it away. For breakfast, there was cereal, toast and waffles available – I tired a bit of everything, it was great!

After breakfast, we had a bit of a chilled morning, as we had an activity booked, but that wasn’t until 12.15, so we could take our time getting ready.

So that we didn’t waste the whole morning, we decided to get ourselves ready for our activity and then have a wander around the town before checking in. As our activity was weather dependant and the weather had taken a turn for the worse over the course of the morning, we thought it would be best to go to the office and check that everything was still going ahead, before we had a wander.

We got to the office just after 11ish and they had already decided at this point that they were cancelling all of the afternoon activities, including ours. We were gutted about this at first, but they said that we could try and reschedule it for another day, if we were staying around in Franz Josef, which we were. We spoke to the receptionist who could fit us in for 8.30, the next morning, so we took it. We just had to wait then and hope that the weather would pick up, although it had given us a bit of a dilemma. Our original plan for the Sunday in Franz Josef, was to get a bus to the next town, Fox Glacier, to have a look around there, as it was a recommended thing to do in New Zealand. As the bus was at 8 and the weather check wouldn’t be until 8, we had to decide what to do, as there were no promises that our activity would be on at all and we could have risked losing out on both.

While we were sat there discussing our options, more and more people were coming in the office to find out the news of all of the trips being cancelled, and some of them couldn’t be rescheduled because there wasn’t room, so we were lucky to have got in there when we did. As we had until morning to make a decision, we thought it was best to leave it for now and figure out what to do with our afternoon, now that it was free.

After a quick walk around the information centre, we decided to go and get some lunch and a drink, as Franz Josef centre is tiny, with very limited options, besides walking and after our 68km cycle in Hokitika, neither of us were in the mood for another big hike just yet.

Once we had eaten lunch, we went back to the hostel for a chilled afternoon. Both of us kind of needed the chance to relax, so it was nice. I gave Joe his first haircut of the trip, which went well to say that it was my first time ever cutting anyone’s hair, but I felt the pressure, as I know how precious he is about it! The rest of the afternoon gave me a chance to catch up on my sewing eventually, as I had ten patches to sew on my bag, before we chilled out and watched some Netflix.

After a few hours of sitting around doing very little, we went out for another walk and ended up in a bar, ready for happy hour. We had a few drinks and it felt like the highlight of the day – I was still feeling disappointed about the activity being cancelled and the weather wasn’t looking any better, so it felt like we weren’t going to get our chance.

When we had finished our drinks, we walked back to the hostel, in time for dinner. We didn’t have any of the free soup to start with this time, I just cooked our dinner, while Joe used my laptop to download some Christmas music for us, to try and get us in the spirit of things. For dinner, we had satay chicken with rice, which tasted a lot better than I expected it to.

Once we had eaten and cleaned up, we chilled out in the lounge area in the lodge and watched some Netflix on my laptop, before going to bed for an early night, knowing that we were up early to do one activity – we just still weren’t sure which one at this point, as it was still cloudy.

When the alarm went off at 7, the first thing that I wanted to do, was to check the weather. I got up and dressed and nipped outside to see what the clouds looked like and to my surprise it was clear, and I could see the mountains! We got up and had breakfast and knew that it was time to make our decision. We could either risk going on our Heli Hike tour at 8.30 and hope that the weather stays nice enough for it to happen, or we could get the bus to Fox Glacier town at 8 and have the day there, but we knew we wouldn’t get a refund on the Heli Hike if we missed it and it went ahead. We tried to ring the Heli Hike company to get an idea of what their plan was, but it didn’t open until 8, so we needed to decide before that.

As the weather was looking a lot better in the morning than it was the night before, and the Heli Hike was something that we did not want to miss out on, we decided to miss our bus to Fox Glacier and risk the weather. After we had eaten our breakfast, we got our things together and walked down to the office, to check in for 8.30.

Luckily, when we got to the office, they said that at that moment, the hike was going ahead, but they were expecting the weather to turn and if it did, the trip could be cancelled at any point. Even though this didn’t sound great, we were just happy to be getting a go at it and couldn’t wait to get on the ice.

Once everyone in our group was checked in, we were taken through to the back and kitted out in the full gear. We were given waterproof pants, a coat, some socks, some boots and a bag with crampons in, for when we got on the ice.

After everyone was sorted, we were taken through the back and had a short walk through the rainforest to the Heli pad. We were given a safety brief, before we were taken onto the helicopter, ready for our flight up onto the glacier.

The flight didn’t last very long, but it was quite a cool experience, even though we were both sat in the middle at the back, so we couldn’t see an awful lot. After about five minutes, we were at the glacier and the driver was landing the helicopter on the ice.

We got out of the helicopter, which created a lot of wind, and had to walk down some ice steps, before putting on our crampons, ready to walk. When everyone was ready, we set off onto the glacier. We walked up, first of all, and across the glacier, getting further and further into the ice. Walking on the ice wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, I guess that’s what the crampons are there for, but I still thought that I would struggle to get my footing and keep up with everyone, but I didn’t.

Along the way, we would have to keep stopping, as there were so many groups up there, we had to keep our distance, so that we didn’t bump into one another. As we were stopped, Ross (our guide), would tell us different snippets of stories or facts about the glacier, while we waited. An explorer, called Haast was the person to ‘find’ the glacier, among many other geographical landmarks in New Zealand at the time. As there were already three Haast glaciers in the world, he decided to name this one after Franz Josef, an Austrian emperor, as Haast thought the glacier reminded him of Franz Josef’s long white flowing beard. Strangely enough, Franz Josef didn’t have a long white flowing beard, so that couldn’t have been the real reason for Haast naming this glacier after him; there was something else. As Haast had been travelling and exploring for such a long period of time, his money had started to run out, so he came up with the idea of naming places that he found after rich, famous people, in the hope that they would sponsor him and give him some money. This worked with Franz Josef, as he was delighted that Haast thought of him, and sent him some money over, as a thank you. Although he was the first person to record discovering the glacier, there were other people who had seen the glacier before, so he wasn’t technically the first.

As we carried on walking, we started to come across some exciting parts of the glacier. There were parts where we had to squeeze through small gaps, which was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, as the walls of the gaps weren’t straight up, so you had to bend and duck at the same time.

Franz Josef is one of the steepest and fastest moving glaciers in the world; although while it is moving, it is also retreating, meaning that more and more of the glacier is disappearing each year. The glacier moves approximately five metres per day. In the past 175 years, or so, the glacier has moved four kilometres, with one of these kilometres being since the year 2008. Before 2008, the glacier would move back and forth, retreating and advancing, making up the first three kilometres, but since then, it has only retreated, and it has done that at a very quick rate. Due to this, it changes a lot every day, and one of the sections that we saw on our walk, was a part of the glacier that Ross hadn’t even seen before: a mini waterfall in the ice, which we both had a drink from, as glacier water is good to drink, apparently. Franz Josef is the steepest and quickest commercial glacier in the world, meaning that if you aren’t a mountaineer, you aren’t allowed on the glaciers that are stepper and quicker.

The formation of the mountains, happens because of the tectonic plates that lie underneath. The Australian plate overlaps the Pacific plate, pushing up, forming the mountains, known as the Southern Alps. These same tectonic plates form a fault line, which runs directly under the petrol station in the village of Franz Josef – the worst place it could probably be. The fault line is okay, as the plates only move approximately every 300 years. When they do move, they jolt horizontally and vertically quite quickly, causing an earthquake of 8.1 on the Richter Scale. As this happens every 300 years, it is mostly okay, except the last time it happened was 1717, so it is due any day now – not something you wanted to hear when you were on a glacier in between two mountains, next to the village with the fault line. Five years ago, scientists predicted that it would probably happen in the next fifty years (meaning that there are forty-five years left of their prediction).

Franz Josef glacier is quite a unique glacier, as it is one of only three glaciers in the world, which end in a rainforest (the other two being Fox Glacier, which is on the other side of the mountains, and a glacier in Argentina). This is something that they say is Australia’s fault, although I’m not sure it is a fault, as it is so unique and beautiful. The glacier and rainforest combination happens, because of the weather. The hot air that is created in Australia, moves east along the Tasman Sea and hits New Zealand’s west coast, travelling inland until it hits the Southern Alps. When this happens, the air has no where to go, so it starts to rise. As the air rises, it gets cooler and cooler and starts to condense. This condensation causes the rain, that the village of Franz Josef receives quite regularly. As the air gets higher and higher, it gets colder and colder, until it is so high that instead of rainfall, it produces snow. The Franz Josef village has five metres of rain per year, the glacier where we stood receives seven metres of rain per year and the tops of the mountains, receives fifty metres of snow per year. The snow is the reason for the glacier. As it is so cold in the tops of the mountains and the snow is falling so regularly, it doesn’t ever melt. These fifty metres of snow each year piles higher and higher, compressing down on itself, under the weight. Eventually, the snow that fell first, is so compressed it has turned into a huge block of ice, which is pushed out, under the weight of the snow on top, forming a glacier.

The same hot air is the hot air that causes the huge amounts of rain, which helps the rainforest at the bottom of the glacier, which is how the two (the glacier and the rainforest), work so well next to each other. The large amount of rainfall is also the reason for trips to the glacier being cancelled so regularly. According to Ross, they cancel 180 days’ worth of trips, each year, because of the weather. In November two years ago, they flew four days in the whole month, last year, they flew nine days, but this year, they hit a record, with seventeen days of flying in November. He said that the same weather that forms the glacier, stops the tourists going up there, but they can’t complain. I guess we were lucky to get up there at all.

As we reached the highest point that we were going to, on the glacier, we were able to go through an ice tunnel. The ice tunnel was natural, but they had put in a rope for us to guide ourselves through. It was my favourite part of the trip! We had to sit down and it was like an ice slide, as we went through to the other side.

While we were waiting for our turn on the ice slide, Ross told us the Maori version of how the glacier came about, as they were the first people to find it, before any Europeans came to the land, they just didn’t record it. The Maori’s named the glacier Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere, after the half human, half goddess Hukatere who lived in the mountains. Hukatere loved the mountains and spent all of her time in them, dancing around and enjoying her every day life. One day, she broke her axe and had to go to the nearest town to get it fixed, which was 15 kilometres north of where the Franz Josef village is today. When she arrived at the town, she met a man and fell in love. The man that she met was a man of the sea and didn’t want to leave where he lived, but Hukatere wanted to show him where she lived and what she loved the most: the mountains. She persuaded him to go to the mountains with her, but one day when they were out exploring, he fell off a cliff and died. Hukatere was heartbroken by this, she cried and cried for such a long time. Her tears began to form rivers, that the gods above decided to freeze, hence the glacier being formed. Ross then left it up to us to decide which version of the glacier formation we believed, the scientific version or the Maori version.

After the tunnel, we started to make our way back down the glacier, back towards the Heli pad, so that we could go back to the village. Just before we reached the Heli pad, we had one more stop, as the line for the helicopter was big. While we were stood waiting, Ross started to tell us about the seriousness of the life of the glacier and what its chances are of lasting. He said that scientists worked out, that optimistically, if the temperature only rises by two degrees, then by 2100, there will be two glaciers, as Franz Josef will part down the middle. If the temperature rises by five or six degrees, then the chances of the glacier surviving are very little. As he was telling us all of this, I just couldn’t seem to understand why they would let us up there if it is in such danger. How come the general public can go up there and how come the workers are allowed to keep hacking away at the ice for people to walk on it, if it is in such danger – surely none of that is helping the situation at all.

Once the line had cleared, we were able to board the helicopter back to the village. On the ride back, we rode over the rainforest and could see the line on the mountainside of how much the glacier has retreated in recent years. The driver thought it was funny at one point to drop quite quickly, making my tummy do summersaults like never before. We were back on the ground by the village quite quickly and got off, ready to take our walk back to the office.

Back at the office, we dropped our clothes off and collected our things, ready to leave. Included in the package, we had free entry to the hot pools in the glacier base, but we decided we wanted to get some lunch before using our free pass. For lunch, we went to the same pub as the day before and shared some food, before going back to the hot pools.

The hot pools were very relaxing and enjoyable, although they were too hot for me at times and I couldn’t cope with the heat. We ended up staying in there for over an hour, which really seemed to fly by.

After the hot pools, we went back to the hostel. We had a couple of hours chilling out and looking through our photos, before the free soup was served. We had some soup as a starter and once the kitchen was cleared, I made dinner. For dinner, we were having leftover satay chicken, but when I went to get our rice, which was in a labelled box, it had gone. I knew who had taken it, as they were cooking it next to me, so I asked them where they had got it from, as theirs was the same, and they had taken ours, but it seemed like a genuine mistake. As they had cooked far too much, we used what was left of theirs, so I just had to reheat the chicken.

After dinner, we had a chilled evening, after our exciting day. We sat in the lounge area and watched some Netflix, before going to bed.

The next morning, I was up at my usual time, ready for breakfast before it ended. As we didn’t have to be up and ready until the afternoon, as we had another activity booked, Joe took his chance for a lie in. I went to breakfast on my own and then got ready and sat up in the lodge with my laptop. I sat there for a few hours, all alone, until Joe finally graced me with his presence just before 11.

Once Joe was up and ready, we packed the bag and decided to head out early, to have a wander, before we needed to be at the kayak office, for our kayak trip at 1.

We walked up the street that we were staying on, towards the information centre. In there, we had a look around and I bought my patch. Before it was time for our kayak trip, we sat in the café and had a hot chocolate; we had a voucher from the Heli Hike, that gave us two for one on hot chocolates, so it was worth the deal. Although I wouldn’t have called it a hot chocolate, as it was warm at best, I enjoyed it anyway, while we sat there and researched some ideas for our next stop.

Just before 12.45, we started to make our way across the road, to the kayak office. We checked in and filled out the forms, before layering up with sun cream and insect repellent and meeting our guide, Laura. Once everyone was ready, we piled into the bus and drove for about ten minutes, down the road to Lake Mapourika.

When we arrived at the lake, the kayaks needed to be loaded off from the trailer, and we had to put our things that we wanted to take with us, into a dry bag, so that it didn’t get wet. After a quick briefing, and once we were kitted up with our splash skirts and life jackets, we were able to climb into a kayak. The kayaks were double kayaks, so we could share the same one: Joe sat at the back with the steering peddles and I sat at the front, to set the pace.

Once everyone was in their kayak, and we were ready to go, Laure pushed us in and told us which direction to start heading. At first, me and Joe weren’t the best at co-ordinating our paddles, although all he had to do was follow my rhythm, but we got there eventually. We all met at a spot in the lake, to give Laura time to climb into her kayak and reach us.

After we had met up, we were told we had a 2.5km kayak to do across the lake, to the other side – it was our arms turn to do the workout, and give our legs a break. We set off paddling and after about five minutes, my shoulders ached and I wanted to give up. It didn’t help that we were fighting against the wind, so we had to paddle extra hard to move. We took our time, quite literally, but eventually we made it to the other side. Included in the package, were some free photos, so Laura took pictures of us along the way, as well as us using the GoPro to take our own.

When we reached the other side, we had a little rest, while Laura told us how the lake came to be. She said that when the glacier began retreating, from the coast 1500 years ago, during the last ice age, a large chunk of ice fell off. The block of ice eventually melted, causing the lake. As no glacier water runs into the lake anymore, it is now filled with rain water, as the town gets six metres of rain a year, according to Laura (one metre more than Ross said on the Heli Hike).

We carried on paddling, quite slowly around the edge of the lake, into a bay around the back of where we were. We were able to chill out a little bit and paddle a little more gently, as the trees shaded the wind from the bay, so it was much calmer. We paddled right into the bay, as far as we could go.

When I thought we couldn’t go any further, Laura pointed out a little stream that we could take, to head into the Kiwi Sanctuary. We paddled through, but we had to be very careful, as it was very shallow and we didn’t want to get stuck. We paddled under tree trunks and brushed against bushes, down the narrow stream, until we came to a wider area. We stopped for a little bit, while Laura told us about the native bird, the Kiwi. She explained that it is endangered and when they found them nesting in this particular area, there were only 120. They began a project, where they collect the eggs and look after them in the Kiwi centre in town, until the eggs have hatched and the birds are about one year old, old enough to look after themselves. Since the project begun, it really seems to have worked, as there are now around 500 Kiwis in the area.

Laura also told us about some native trees that were there and we tried the leaf of one of the trees, the horopito tree. She told us beforehand that it would have a strong, spicy taste and it definitely did! You are meant to chew it a few times and then spit it out, but I think I chewed it a bit too long, the taste was disgusting. Laura explained that the Maoris will use this as a numbing medicine for tooth or throat pain, as it is so strong. The name horopito translates to pepper tree, so I guess that explains the strong taste.

After we had tried the plant, we turned our kayaks around and made our way back out of the sanctuary, towards the lake. When we got back into the bay, we stopped for a group photo, before heading back towards the bus. It was a long and bumpy ride back, as the waves were even bigger than before. After a struggle and lots of rests, we made it back to the shore, where we hopped out and took off our life jackets and splash skirts. We had a short wait, while the kayaks were loaded back onto the trailer, before we drove back towards the centre of town.

When we got back into town, we nipped back into the information centre to pick up some leaflets about our next stop, before walking back to the hostel.

By the time we got back to the hostel, I was extremely tired, and ready for a rest and an early night. We chilled out for a bit, as it was too early for dinner yet, so we settled for a hot chocolate instead. When the soup was ready, we had a bit of that to keep ourselves going, and we had a quick shower before dinner, as we forgot to take it out of the freezer in the morning, so we were giving it as long as possible to defrost.

Dinner was hot pot again, which we had with some bread and butter. After dinner, we cleaned up and watched some Netflix, before getting the early night that we needed (or I needed, as Joe had had his lie in), ready to catch our next bus in the morning.

Our final morning in Franz Josef was an early one. The alarm went off at 6.30 and we got up and ready, and finished packing our bags. We were ready for about 7.15, so it gave us a chance to get our bags to reception and be ready for breakfast to start at 7.30.

After enjoying our last waffles breakfast, we made our way to the hostel next door, as that is where the bus stop was, ready for our bus at 7.45.

Franz Josef has been, yet again, another amazing experience. Even though we arrived with a perfect plan, which had to be changed slightly, we still had a great time and managed to do more amazing things, that we probably won’t get the chance to do again. New Zealand seems to keep delivering more and more incredible sights and I’m excited to see what Wanaka has to offer, as we head there for the next few days.

To travel is to live, Katie x