The night we stayed at another DOC called Otto campsite. It was extremely windy and it was hard to fall asleep. The morning was fresh and we had our muesli and tea breakfast before we drove to town.
We checked in at the reception for the glacier walk we booked a few days earlier at the tourist information office. At the time of booking the weather forecast did not sound too promising but we had a clear morning with hardly any clouds. Any other day we saw a lot of clouds on top of the mountains.
The only things we had to bring were 4 top layers of clothing to keep warm a non jeans trouser, sun glasses, sun protection, water and lunch. We got shoes, socks, crampons, water proof trousers and jacket, gloves and a head.
After we collected all the items we drove by bus closer to the Franz Josef Glacier. We were a group of over 40 people so we were split up into 10 people groups. All the guides were very young and we had the only male one. The first 30 minutes we walked closer to the glacier with stunning view already and only very close to the ice we were shown how to put on our crampons. In the beginning it was funny to walk with them and to trust them to protect you from slipping. It was still early in the morning and the sun was hiding behind the mountain, so the ice was still very hard. The first part of the walk was already on amazing blue ice with lovely formation. We walked slowly and we also had to stop very often so the guide was able make steps into the ice with his ax. While we waited for the steps to be ready we had the time to enjoy the scenery, take pictures and look closer at the ice. Sometimes the ice was crystal clear and amazingly blue and on other parts it really locked dirty, but when you looked closer the little stones and dirt in the ice also looked special. We walked into two caves and through narrow openings of ice, had lunch at a nice place with an incredible few to the top of the glacier. Helicopters were flying over our heads to bring other tourists even higher up to the glacier for a lot of money.
We walked for 5 hours on the ice and both of us wanted more, but our bodies were tired.
In the town of Franz Josef we had a small snack and as our glacier trip also included the hot springs in town we got our swim wear ready. We arrived there and it was a very relaxing atmosphere with three pools. Every pool had a different temperature, 36, 38 and 40 degrees Celsius. We enjoyed a couples of hours there and also the shower afterwards was great.
The water made us very hungry so we had dinner at a picnic table in town and then drove the 30 minutes to the town of Fox Glacier. There was also a DOC campsite called Gillespie and we had to drive for another 20 minutes on gravel. The campsite was free and lovely located close to a beach with some shorted tramping in the area. It was already dark and when we arrived, a lot of other campers had lovely fires on. We set up the tent and got ready for a night's rest.
In the morning we walked along the beach and saw a few mountains and the Fox Glacier peaking through the clouds which were hiding the Southern Alps. A French guy asked Robert if we can take him to the town, as we had enough space for one more person we of course gave him a lift. We drove to the viewing area of Glacier Fox and walked for around 30 minutes to the face of the glacier. Unfortunately we had a better view from the distance compared to the close up look.
After our two glacier experiences we continued on the West Coast.
First we wanted to stop at the Copland Track to hike up for a night stay and to enjoy the hot springs. But we did not see the sign and continued along the road. We stopped at the "Night Point" were we had magnificent views along the rocky West Cost. There we found out that along the road were many short walks. So instead the overnight tramping we did a lot of shorted trampings.
Roaring Billy Falls.
Fantal Falls, were Robert did a little skinny dipping.
Blue pools.
The night we spent again at a DOC camping spot at a lake close to Wanaka. The night turned out to be very windy and it rained a lot as well.
By the way this little sandflies almost ate us and they did not care if we used insect repellent or not, most of the time we had to escape to our tent.
For more pictures follow click on the link: Glacier
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