Franz Josef

Woke up this morning to the start of another rugby match – it’s on everywhere; they can’t get enough of it – and watched Argentina narrowly beat Scotland in the quarter-final over breakfast. Then we said our goodbyes to our host, Chris, at the Hokitika Heritage Lodge and headed down the coast about 130km to Franz Josef Glacier. It rained pretty much all the way (and had been raining all through the night) so we didn’t get to see very much en route, but then it brightened up and turned into a glorious, sunny day once we arrived the township of Franz Josef.

We did the couple of hotel inspections we had to straight away and then headed over to the glacier and walked a couple of the shorter routes (the Sentinel Rock Walk and the Forest Walk which take about 20 minutes each) to see some great views of the glacier and take photos. The glacier is actually in a state of advancement now (and has been for the last 25 years) so is pretty impressive. Nothing like it was in the late 1700’s though, looking back at the old photographs of the area. You can see in a couple photos I took (here and here) a large area of grey stone and shale with someone walking across it – the ice used to extend down to here and this was a lake that people used to row across to climb the glacier, dodging small icebergs on the way!

After that bit of exercise we were in need of some lunch, so headed back to the township, grabbed a toasted sandwich, I went into the local store and bought myself a pair of much-needed sunglasses (and a new book – Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island – I’ve been meaning to read it for a couple of years). Then, on to our “country retreat” … and it certainly is a retreat! Talk about remote. The views of the mountains and nearby lake are really something. So here I am writing this and spending a lazy afternoon reading my book. Unfortunately there’s no internet access whatsoever out here, so I’m not sure when I’ll get to add this (and the new photos) to the blog.

Tomorrow morning (if the weather holds up) we should be going heli-hiking on the Fox Glacier, which is about 30 minutes south of Franz Josef.