The last few days have been a bit of a whistle-stop tour from the beautiful art deco town of Napier, onto Wellington, the capital city and coffee capital of NZ, over the Cook Strait and into the stunningly beautiful Charlotte Sound which looks as if it is straight out of the 70's 'Beachcombers' TV programme. From picturesque Picton on the South Island we headed down the west coast in search of glaciers and arrived at the aptly named 'Pancake Rocks' just in time to see the sun setting over the Tasman Sea. We heard the waves thundering on the beach all night from our beach cabin.
It is incredible how quickly the landscape changes here. From traversing knee-knockingly high mountain passes to crusing through acres of bare vines in Marlborough wine country, weaving around dramatic coastal roads with huge waves rolling in, to chasing unbelievably aqua blue rivers through fat, flat and green glacial valleys. Then we rounded yet another corner and were rewarded with out first breath-taking view of the Franz Josef glacier.
The Franz Josef town is tiny and built to facilitate the tourist industry that has attached itself to this fast-expiring natural beauty. One of only three temperate glaciers in the world, (one is down the road and the third is in Argentina) it has an alpine climate at the top of the glacier and a rainforest climate at the bottom. This creates a lot of 'warm rain' resulting in one of the fastest receeding glaciers in the world. While we were hiking on it today, it receeded by, at least, another 1.5 metres. This knowledge is a little unnerving when you can clearly hear the ice cracking, dripping and flowing with some force beneath you. The 'warm rain' didn't feel so warm this morning however. We have been very lucky with the weather since we arrived in New Zealand but this morning we thought our luck had run out. As we stood in the middle of hard, driving rain we seriously thought about pulling out of the hike up the glacier. But, figuring we were wet anyway we stuck to the plan and joined 16 other hardy individuals on another trip of a lifetime. Good decision. By the time we tramped the 3km to the glacier terminal (unfortunate term) the rain had eased, the wind dropped and the sun was fighting to get out.
I don't really have the words to describe what followed. The colours: aqua blue, brilliant white, slate grey, dusky pink...
The textures ranged from razor sharp shards to baked alaska fields to smooth pools. It was physically exhausting, even before we got to the stage where we had to use crampons, but totally exhilarating.
We even got to slide through ice crevices and Nic and I led a small group through an ice-cave. Yes, a definite case of the blind leading the blind.
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