We bid our farewells to Christchurch and Steve and drove from Christchurch to Franz Josef Glacier on the west coast of the South Island. The drive was about 4 hours. Not too bad. There are two known glaciers here, the Franz Josef and the Fox Glacier. We decided to hike the better known Franz Josef because the tour times worked out better for us.
We showed up for our guided tour and proceeded to get our gear - trousers, waterproof jacket, gum boots, clamp ons, hats, socks and gloves. We looked like professional glacier hikers now! Our group was about 24 people. There was a big group of Asians that were part of our tour group, some were young, some were old.
From the get go, we could tell it was going to be a long day. To get to the glacier, you needed to hike across this long bed of rocks for a good 30-40 minutes. One of the Asians dropped out of the tour then, before even making it to the glacier. They always lagged behind the rest of the group, too. They said they would split up the groups between "faster paced" and "slower paced" people. We wanted to be in the faster paced group so that we wouldn't be stuck behind the slow people. Unfortunately, the groups were divided based on who got the clamps on their shoes first. We were too slow so we ended up in the slow group with the slow Asians.
It was pretty pathetic seeing this group of Asian people try to make it up the glacier. The older ones I understand, they're old, they need time. However, the younger ones had a poor showing of athleticism. The one girl in front of me was practically on her hands and knees for most of the climb. It was clear that this group had never done a day of exercise in their lives. It was pretty sad. One older Asian guy was really holding us back. Apparently, he had bad knees. Not sure why he thought it would be a good idea to go on a glacier climb with bad knees, but kudos to him for trying.
We actually didn't mind the slow pace because it gave us time to take pictures while others were slow in climbing. The other "faster paced" group wasn't too pleased though. They had to wait a good 20 minutes for our group to finish, so they were standing in the cold windy valley for a long time. It took forever to get back to the bus because the Asian group was so slow. We had to keep stopping and wait for them to catch up. Our tour guide, Harry, said that this was one of the slowest groups that he had ever taken up. By 8pm, we were all tired and grumpy and people were definitely getting impatient. The big group seemed oblivious, just taking their time walking
without caring that other people were waiting. Hence, what a disgrace to the race!Anyhow, the glacier hike was fun. It was neat climbing up stairs chipped out of ice and being surrounded by ice walls and an ice floor. We didn't go too high, but it was still a great view and the colors in the ice were amazing. I'm not sure the pictures did the surroundings justice.
By the time we got out of our gear and made our way to the car, it was already 8:30, a good 5.5 hours after we started our tour. We weren't in the mood to go to a restaurant and waste time eating there, so we just stopped at the local convenience store to grab some quick food to fill us up.
We then realized it was Thanksgiving in the U.S. So, we celebrated with our canned creamy chicken soup, Uncle Ben's microwave rice, a nuked corn on the cob and some smoked trout on sesame and poppy crackers. Happy Thanksgiving to us! I tried to find some pumpkin pie, but no luck. The closest I came was some roast pumpkin and capsicum soup in a can.
We had our dinner at our hotel for the night, the Sunset Motel, which was located in Fox Glacier. It was big and comfy and we had a good view of the mountains.
We had our meal, wished each other a Happy Thanksgiving and called it a night.
For pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=eric.chang1&target=ALBUM&id=5409717768466862865&authkey=Gv1sRgCJS2hqTgitDIFw&feat=email
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