The Kiwi Experience does ICE! (Franz Joseph)

I was a bit dubious about doing a whole days trek … on ice?! Particularly because of my clumsy nature, I remember when it snowed earlier in the year before I left to go travelling and it was literally nerve racking for me, I would stroll to work with confidence that my bright green wellies would keep me safe and then trip over the doorstep on the way into the office and end up with bruised knees and elbows. This was going to be a whole day on ice - ICE! (when ever I say ICE in my head I think of Sanka from cool runnings … feel de riddem, feel de rhyme, get on up, its bobsled time!)

Anyway we were all doing the full day trek and all opted for the medium difficulty option which meant going quite far into the glacier and at decent pace without having to leg up it like bear grills on advanced or stroll to the edge of the glacier on the easy option.

Whilst checking in for our trek we were given rain coats, bum bags with crampons in (them grippy things that attach to your walking boots) thick socks, mittens and were told we would get our pick axes once we arrived on the glacier - these would not be used for 'comic photos' (although we did) but were to pull us up steep ice walls, and help our guides chip steps into any ice which was too smooth to simply walk on.

Once on the bus we were given our safety briefing and they explained we had to do a 40 minute hike across the gravel to get to the glaciers edge - they failed to explain that this hike was up a mound of gravel which moved under your feet like sand and made it hot and tiring work as you scrambled for 40 mins to the top, difficult bit over, or so they said.

But that's when we saw the sheer size of the glacier in its full awesomeness! I didn't really believe that it would be a proper glacier, I just thought it was marketing hype and it would be a frozen lake, but oooh no it was certainly the scary valley of ice a glacier should be. Before stepping onto the glacier we prepared by putting our crap ons on, drinking some water and taking pics with our pic axes. Then off we went, I was pretty nervous to begin with, ice is sharp and a lot of us got cut hands, chill blanes and poor harry tripped and took all the skin off of his knees. We were all enjoying our selves as we wound our way up the glacer, what I didn't realise is that a glacier is a semi frozen river, as the ice melts and runs to the front it then freezes and so on until the glacier has grown and grown, then every 150 years or so it recedes again - the cycle is never ending. But just like a river it has waves frozen in time, peaks and troughs and it was with one of these troughs that I got stuck! Lol that's right, it had to be me didn't it?! That got herself wedged between 2 walls of ice! Oh it was so horrific I had to laugh, so basically we were sliding through a crevis when the crevis ended and the guide told us to use out pic axes and crampons to climb up the wall of ices and out of the top - easy peasy I thought, 8 other people had done it in front of me so no bother just dig my crampons in and pull myself up. The thing I had failed to hear was that we had to take our bags and bum bags off first - throw them up the wall to the ledge above and then climb up - otherwise you would wedge … yourself … in?! L

Within seconds of me starting to climb I was stuck, well and truly wedged with my bum bag at the front, my backpack at the back and me solidly stuck in the middle - within minutes everyone was slightly concerned, within 10 minutes I was still there - my legs shaking to try and hold me up, if I let my feet go I was at risk of breaking the odd rib or two at least - so there I was, wedged into a cocoon of ice. It got to the point where I had a fit of giggles - which meant I couldn't even try to get myself out of the situation. Luckily someone made the guide aware of my predicament and she came to help me by chipping away some ice, undoing my bum bag and therefore releasing me - phew! I had images of "127 hours" but lucky it was merely 15 minutes. I eventually heaved myself up the ice and sat down, my legs like jelly, my hoody soaked through and me in a bit of a daze. But I put a rain coat on, warmed up and brushed it off - we all joked about it when we stopped for lunch - I still can't believe I got stuck lol the rest if the day was a much bigger success as we all walked like the seven dwarfs (or maybe 10 dwarfs) through crevices, down ice falls, up ice steps and generally around the maze of walkways the glacier is made up of. I loved it, like actually loved it - I felt so adventurous as we tackled the difficult terrain, wondered into cathedrals made of ice and drank the melted 100 pure water which trickled all around us. It's like a different planet - houses, roads, rivers made of ice - bright blindingly blue ice which when the sun hit it was so beautiful I wanted to live in it forever. But my time as the ice queen were short lived as we made our way back down the glacier to the bottom. During our decent I realised my boots were rubbing, by the time we got to the bottom I had blisters like saucepans on my heals but I didn't care, it was all worth it.

I spent a day trekking and exploring a glacier - how many days do you ever spend doing that?!

Shockingly I left franz Joseph glacier with a cold and a hangover, we had celebrated Hayden's birthday not only on the glacier, but also in the hot springs after and then with a meal and drinks in the hostel restaurant as well. The evening was fab as we all sat around the fire playing drinking games such as 1 up 1 down and Chris' fave game named cow boys and Indians (the twins were hilarious at this). Our group just get on so well, I don't think there was a single drama in the month we spent together, just laughs (often provided by Irish Dave) and good times.

We left Franz Joseph with a sense of achievement, well I did anyway, yet again I went further than I thought I could, I put my mind to something and did it - no fuss, no doubt, just did it.

New Zealand cracked another corker out of the bag and this was just experience number one of a crazy week and this was topped off with a stop at the Poo Pub.

Ok so the Poo Pub is something which is famous on the Kiwi Experience, my sister went there 6 years ago when she was travelling and I haven't met anyone who has been on the Kiwi bus and not stopped there for a party. The Poo Pub is so named not only because of where it is located at lake Mahinapua but also due to the fact that over the years travellers have hung hats from the ceiling, hundreds of hats which now smell a little bit pooey. Anyway its tradition to have a fancy dress party when you stay at this pub, the bus driver picks the theme and pulls over for an hour in a town nearby so that everyone can find a costume. Our theme was "P" so after debating how to dress up like a pencil, a post it note and a postman (my thought pattern was stationary based) I decided to go as a puppet and Jazz would be my puppet master - our budget was small but with a little bit of initiative (adding string to a nuns cross and attaching it to my hands and feet) we looked awesome. Everyone looked great and had really put effort into their outfits, we had a pope, punk rocker, pensioners and my fave was a pack of playing cards who every time the song "everyday im shuffling" came on would all shuffle round, they did a human pyramid to make a house of cards and planked one on top of another to make a deck lol it was so funny and a great night!! We all had a steak dinner prepared by the owner and then drank till the sun came up, picking songs on the duke box and fixing the drinking games so that Kerry was legless by midnight and dave was covered in writing haha

The poo pub is another must do, you can't go backpacking around new Zealand and not stop there - it's another back packer tradition which I thoroughly enjoyed adhering to J

But the poo pub was over in one night and the next morning we headed off on the west coast road to a little town with a lot to offer - we were heading to QUEENSTOWN! Woop woop J