We’re leaving on a jet plane…….

31st July 2006

We are now in Queenstown, after driving the short distance from Wanaka (makes me laugh every time, immature I know!). Queenstown is the ‘adrenaline’ capital of New Zealand, home of the worlds highest bungee jump, and all sorts of bungee spin offs (canyon swings, running bungees, inverse bungees, etc etc…). In winter time (i.e. now!) Queenstown becomes a ski resort, with loads of skiers and boarders heading up into the nearby ‘remarkables’ mountain range for some action on the white stuff.

So far we have resisted the temptation to bungee, instead getting our adrenaline fix today by undertaking a white water rafting trip. We both fancied a challenge, so have waited a couple of days for the correct conditions so we could access the Shotover river, a grade 5 whitewater river (grade 1 = a lake, grade 6 = death), passing the opportunity to raft the beginners Karawau river.

The only way you can access the river at this time of year is via Helicopter, as the rapids are located in a remote gorge, so today, we officially became ‘Helirafters’! The helicopter ride was a first for both of us, and after an initial few bumps as we passed low over the top of the mountains, the flight was really scenic as we made our way up above the river, through the narrow gorge that we would later be rafting.

After a comprehensive safety brief, where we were worringly informed that ‘not everyone has made it back from this river’, we got together with a group of Aussies and an American lass, and jumped in our raft, with our guide, Ryan. When taking our seats in the raft, Ryan asked for a couple of confident people to sit up front, where apparently the ride is roughest, without hesitation Charlotte volunteered us for this role and i had to smile and go along with the ‘confident’ masquerade.

We headed off down the river, tackling rapids with names such as the ‘toilet’ (where one boat lost 4 rafters, all survived however!), the ‘mother in law’, ‘pinball’ and ‘Goldminers revenge’. As we were upfront, we were responsible for setting the paddling pace on the order of our guide, who was at the back of the raft steering. On successful completion of the ‘toilet’ rapid, he exclaimed, as only a yankee could ‘ great job on the toilet you guys’ – cue immature laughter from the Brits!

We survived all the rapids without losing any of our crew, although we both chose (along with one Aussie) to tackle one of the lesser rapids outside of the boat, by floating downstream in our wetsuits, which was a good laugh despite the cold!

At the end of our time on the river (just over an hour!) we relaxed in the sauna back at the rafting HQ, where we also warmed ourselves up with a brew and a sausage roll.

We are having a great time here in Queenstown, it is a really cool place. Infact, we are loving it so much, we have just booked ourselves 3 days snow boarding, it seemed like a safer bet than tackling the bungee!

27th July 2006

Maori legend states that a maori girl named Hinehukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover, Tawe, to climb with her. Tawe was not a fan of climbing but persisted for Hinehukatere’s sake. One day Tawe fell from the peaks to his death. Hinehukatere was broken hearted and her many, many tears froze to form the Franz Joseph glacier which the Maoris call Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere – or “The Tears of the Avalanche Girl”

The sun was out in force the day we chose to undertake a full days hike (with guide) up the Franz Joseph. Now most of you may think a travelling life is a somewhat easy life….No Sirrreeee! It took us both the best part of two hours, a lot of leaflet reading and a couple of rather good cappucino’s to finally decide on the Franz Joseph over its sister glacier, The Fox Glacier’ and a full day hike over a heli-hike or half day hike. Thankfully we believe we chose well.

The day began at 8.15am with the provision of our kit for the day. Apart from waterproofs we were provided with boots which reminded me of biker boots (which I like to think were something like you would find on Lara Croft) and a pair of “Talons”. I understand the talons are similar to crampons but with more teeth….although I am not that au fait with crampons to verify this.

We had a ten minute drive before we caught our first site of the glacier which is 12km long (the incline is approximately 6km and the top of the glacier is also approximately 6km). The first question our guide asked us is how far away from the glacier we were standing….now I seriously thought we were about 200m and was going to pipe up with what I later learnt to be sheer ignorance when Chris beat me to it with his rather closer guess (could not bring myself to write “informed response”) of 2km…..the correct answer was 2.2km.

The glacier has (like glaciers tend to do intodays climes) retreated signifiantly over the years and is still retreating but is currently in a short advance period…..think of the tide and the action of waves as the tide retreats and its something like that! The glacier can advance by 70cm a day which is phenomenal by glacial standards!

After the short trek to the terminal face of the glacier we donned our talons and began to proceed behind our guide onto the ice. Walking with talons is a little different to walking normally …the easiest way to describe it is that you have to stamp more……and boy are we feeling the product of our stamping today!

The first hour or so of hiking was interspersed with regular stops whilst our guide reset the previous days safety lines which were situated in places where the going was tricky or there was substantial drops to oneside. The ice was also considerably dirtier than that found higher on the glacier quite simply because it is older and has travelled further down the valley.

Once we got over the first ridge the landscape changed considerably…..not only was the ice alot cleaner ….think blue ice (the colour is due to the purity and compactness of the ice)……but the terrain was dramatically different with narrow gaps to squeeze through, tunnels to climb through and caves to enter……in short alot more of the funkier stuff!

The full day hike allowed us about 6 hours on the ice during which our guide used it as his personal playground…..carving out new steps with his ice axe depending on where his mood took him. At the start of the day we volunteered ourselves to join the more confident of the two full day hike groups and consequently were faced with some quite challenging climbs (which our guide made look easy!) which has probably only added to the fire in our quadraceps today!

On leaving Franz Joseph we headed to Wanaka (dont forget to pronounce the middle ‘a’) stopping by at Lake Matherson which provides picture postcard views of the mountains reflecting in the lake. The area is extremely peaceful and no doubt one of the most beautiful places we have visited so far on our travels.

P.S. Chris has now been stopped twice by the police and breathlised…….must look dodgy ….or maybe its just his driving! The first time was after disembarking the ferry from the North Island where every car was stopped and the second was last night in Wanaka. It appears they are having ahuge crackdown over here due to the numbers of road accidents. It was never in doubt ……both times he passed with flying colours.

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21st July 2006

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18th July 2006

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13th July 2006

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