FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER

Chewbacka and her friend got up before the sun this morning to catch the Kiwi-bus, doesnt sound like fun by all accounts of it!!!!!!

We booked on a guided trek up F.Josef glacier today. We were out for about 5 hours and with about 2 1/2 hours on the ice. Walking up to it, passed the public barriers, it looks big but when you got up to the face of the thing its just incredible. Not only because its so so big but that it is there at all as at the face it was about 15 degrees c and in summer it gets to 30 degrees. The surrounding rainforest either side of the glacier gets 5 meters of rain a year, which I thought was a heck of a lot of precipitation but at the summit of the glacier it gets 50 meters. Obviously this all falls as snow and thats what feeds the glacier and ables it to exist so close to sea level and not to completely melt away in summer.

Our guide, Pick Axe John, reckons it moves about 2-4 meters a day, somedays it advances but mostly it retreats, which I thought was a lot but had to believe him as he's the one that goes up first thing each morning to carve out new steps as the glacier moves so much - its like its alive man, breathing its way up and down the valley.

We strapped on our crampons and climbed the ice, we did a big loop of the glacier. Back in the valley, from a distance, we saw we'd hardly climbed any height at all, its that big.

Back in the village we jumped in the car and drove to Greymouth. Got here canny late but managed to check in ok. Its called Noahs Ark, all the rooms are named after animals. We got Elephants, Ive never seen so many pictures and status of elephants all in one place - felt like I was in a stampeed!!!!