New Zealand - South Island Glaciers

South of Greymouth you re-enter another pretty sparsely populated area. New Zealand is somewhat famous for its "single track" bridges - shared by road and rail traffic. Never actually met a train on any of these bridges - would have made a good photo!

Approaching the area of the glaciers it did not look too promising. All the mountain tops appeared to be encased in cloud and overall it was pretty dull.

I was beginning to think this might be another Kaikoura situations where the weather - which, apart from Kaikoura has been pretty good so far, would let me down. On my last trip here the weather had also been poor and I had not seen the glaciers at all...

When I reached the first of the Glacier towns - Franz Josef, things were looking up - the mountain tops where visible in places and the sun had broken through. Made some enquiries about helicopter trips and finally found one place that said there was a fair chance of getting a trip - if they could find 2 or 3 other people to make it worthwhile. Settled for that and agreed to call back after lunch.

I was just settling down too my lunch when the guy came up the street and told me I had 5 minutes to make a trip as 2 people had just turned up! Had to guzzle down the food - occurred to me as I was walking towards the shop that it might not have been the wisest thing to have crammed the food in - if the trip was bumpy!

The helicopter was quite small - 5 persons max, and unfortunately I was slow off the mark and didn't grab the front seat - this meant I had quite a restricted view, especially forward, and didn't give the full sensation of flying. As this was my first helicopter trip this was a little disappointing - so my advice is to be "assertive" and try to grab a front seat if you can! Never the less, there were still some incredible views. Unfortunately once again my notes have let me down and I'm not too sure which of the 3 main glaciers (Franz Josef, Fox and Tasman) are shown in my photos. It actually felt a little disorientating in the helicopter due to the way it could turn.

It was a really incredible experience to be flying through the mountains. This photo shows one of the ridges with snow overhangs which just looked like they were about to avalanche...

Much to my surprise, the flight felt very smooth. It was pretty noisy inside the cabin, though we were given large ear phones which kept some of the noise out and allowed us to hear what the pilot was saying.

We flew quite close to the top of Mount Cook - or at least it felt like we did!

I'd taken the look tour with a glacier landing - I think it was about 40 minutes including the time on the glacier. Cost was $234NZ, or about £70 - quite expensive but not extortionate

It was clear from the tracks that the helicopter tours all landed at the same point. However we had the place to ourselves. I found the experience of being there quite exhilarating. This is our pilot, coming with his camera, offering to take our photos. I'm afraid we all declined.

However one of my companions took this photo of me and the helicopter. I'd actually took too much cloths with me - it was really quite warm, partly because it was quite a sheltered place we had landed. We stayed on the snow for about 10 minutes.

On the way back I got a front seat and it really was so much better. The return trip was quite short, but the pilot seemed to skim down Franz Josef glacier quite low which have an great impression of speed.

This photo shows the ice on the glacier as it tumbles over a sort of ice fall.

Back on the ground, I decided to take a trip up close to see the Glacier. Went to Franz Josef. It was a fairly short drive up to a car park. Misread the sign thinking it was just a short distance to the glacier. In reality this short distance just took you to this overview where you could see the glacier's end point up the valley.

Apparently although the glacier has been retreating for a long time (there are markers on the road up which show the end points at various times over the last 100+ years), it has actually been advancing over the last few years. Scientists think this is connected with heavier than average snow falls over the mountains, rather than any indication that global warming is not happening!

The walk up the valley was fairly flat but very rocky - was rather glad I'd packed my proper walking boots! It was also a surprisingly long way - I think the shear scale of the valley and glacier gave a slightly misleading idea of how far it was! Still it was interesting and there were a number of things to look at on the way. This waterfall on the valley side was quite impressive - you can judge the scale by the person standing at the bottom. By the way, that is rocks, not snow at the bottom of the photo.

I seemed to hit the glacier at the right time as I met a lot of groups and individuals heading away from the glacier, including some who had obviously joined some of the glacier hikes on offer.

The walk from the viewpoint to the glacier end point took about 25 minutes at a fair pace. Up close the end point was pretty impressive. Somehow this photo does not seem to do justice. There were lots of signs saying that you should not try climbing on the glacier unless part of a guided party with the right equipment. Of course I followed some ice steps up a little bit to see what it was like - and had a bit of a shock when I turned to go down and realised that without clamp-ons it was more than a little tricky. I got down OK, if a little undignified in places! So, obey those signs folks!

One thing that surprised me was how dirty the ice is at the face - all the stones and dirt scraped up by the ice of course reappear when it melts (still, it reminded me of all those "o" level geography lessons on the different forms of glacial depositions - lateral, terminal etc etc!)

Returning to the car, I drove on to Fox Glacier. This appeared to be a much smaller town to Franz Josef though offering similar glacier tours and helicopter trips. Drove up to Fox Glacier to see how it compared.

The valley up to Fox Glacier was much more narrow and closed in. Decided not to walk all the way up to to the face of the glacier this time - by now the weather was definitely closing in and it looked like it was about to rain. Glad I got that helicopter trip earlier in the day! Hard to saw which glacier is the most interesting - with the sun shining I definitely preferred Franz Josef, but they are both impressive.