Franz Josef Glacier and Gillespie Beach 1st-2nd Sep 2010

Franz Josef Glacier

We were up early as our glacier tour departed at 8.45am.  It was not a good start to the day though as it had poured with rain all night.  However, we had discovered that Franz Josef has the highest annual rainfall a year in NZ, so we’ll let them off :)

And before you make any comments about our attire for the journey, yes we look like losers, but kept us dry and warm up the glacier :)

It was a 10 minute bus ride up to the glacier car park, then another 10 minute walk before we even caught sight of the glacier.  From the point of where we first saw Franz Josef, it was a 40 minute walk before even setting foot on the terminal face (the actual face that is seen at the bottom of the glacier).  Franz Josef is 12km and terminates only 19km from the west coast of NZ and it is still growing at a rate of 70cm a day.

So back to our walk….

The 40min walk to the glacier!

When we finally got to the glacier, the terminal face was mountainous, but had to be climbed and of course we got put in the fit group (cough cough lol) so off we trotted up the huge hill of rubble!

Crampons (ice climbing spikes) on and we will let the rest of the pictures do the talking.  Absolutely amazing morning, and the weather even cleared up at the end of the climb :)

If you look closely, you can see people climbing on the glacier, this is the point we would get to after 2 hours climbing.  To climb the whole glacier would be an overnight trip and would take 16hours!!!

Yes, it really was this wet!

 

The view of glacier valley, many years ago, the glacier expanded 12km further through this valley! The rocky formations on the top of the glacier in this picture are actually, incredibly 80metres high!!!

  Steps carved into the glacier to make our life climbing easier!

As you can see, there was a lot of white and blue going on! Fortunately, the day cleared up for a bit so we got some stunning pictures, we were worried all the pictures were going to be covered in raindrops!

As we were all frozen to the bone, we went for a hot pool afternoon to help relax our tired muscles and warm up a bit.  Only thing was we had to get over getting from the changing rooms to the outdoor hot pools!  There were 3 pools: 36, 38 and 40 degrees.  We all liked the 38 degree pool best :)

 

To end a great day, a full rainbow which we all definitely thought ended at our campervans in our campsite (looked like it anyways!).

Fox Glacier

Next day we drove to the next town which is Fox Glacier, but we only did the 10 min walk to the glacier view rather than the full shabang this time!

Gillespies Beach

We then headed down the coastal road from Fox Glacier to Gillespies Beach.  It was a long and winding road, and when we finally got to the beach, it was sooooooooooooooooo windy! We had been told about this beach by another traveller we had met along the way.  According to him, there were seals right on the beach next to the car park.  So with this in mind, we headed onto the beach with no food, water, or decent shoes or anything really except our cameras!  We couldn’t see any seals when we got onto the beach, so we started walking. 45 minutes of walking later, we still hadn’t seen a seal, but we were finally in sight of a bridge.  Having gone this far, we thought we may as well continue!

About 20 minutes further on from the bridge, we came to a very disheartening sign that read “Seal Colony – 2 hour return from this point” :( we were not happy.  But as we had got this far, and the weather was holding out, we continued on.

The path that was leading us to the seals was one of the worst paths ever, it was more like a waterfall, and in places, it was like a cross between the krypton factor and the crystal maze trying to figure out how to get across the water and the bridges!

 

FINALLY, we made it to the beach!!!! But we were in the middle of the beach and it was huge and we had no clue which way to go and were giving up hope at this point.  We were all hungry, thirsty, tired and were not in the mood for a seal hunt.  When Chris, out of the corner of his eye, saw a sign made out of pebbles! Seals –>!

 

So another 20 minutes of walking later, Naomi moaning like a teenager from Kevin and Perry and we caught sight of a singular seal.  That was enough to keep us all happy :)

Then we saw more and more and more until we realised we were right in the centre of the colony.  The walk had been well worth it and we were happy to just sit and marvel at the wondrous sight.  A sight that was for us and no one else :) nature and wildlife at its best.  There were moments where it felt like David Attenborough would cut in with some commentary!

   

So in high spirits we headed back along the long path home!

And past the signs that were very very very misleading!

 

All in all, the walk and staying with the seals for a while took us just over 5 hours! It was well worth it, but we were so unprepared! A great day off the guide book and into the wilderness!  We drove 100km to the next major town, Haast, found a campsite and then all we did that night was rest our very very tired legs!