06/04/09

Had a decent nights sleep for the first time in a while, probably because I was so exhausted. Woke up and Coops and I had our mandatory chat at about 2am for a few hours. We woke up again at half 7 and we weren't freezing for once, we were actually nice and warm and had to open a window to cool down a little. We watched 3 episodes of the Simpsons and then I decided to get up and pop the kettle on to get the washing done from last night. We had finally used up the first bottle of gas so the second should just about last the entire time. I Switched the gas bottles over and spent an hour or so tidying up. We set off for the west coast, it was Rich's turn to drive and I was still a little tired so laid down on the back seat the entire way.

We arrived in a place called Hokitika at about 1pm and spent the afternoon wandering around the shops. This town is supposed to be the 'Hub of the West coast' all it has is gift shops a few bakeries and book shops. The only supermarket it has is a New World, it was time to do a big shop so we spent a little time going round it, everything was a rip-off so we got what we could and left and chanced bumping in to a different supermarket further down the coast. We all had a brief stint on the net in the VideoEzy next door, I then went to the book exchange and managed to tripple my money on Bravo Two Zero which I bought for a $ in Taupo and traded for 3. We then realised that the New World car park shut at 8pm so we had to move down the road and park up for the night. There were no freedom camping areas so we ended up in some skanky back alley for the night.

07/04/09

I woke up and walked to the public toilets and had a stip wash using the plug that I had managed to steal from some camp site. We walked around town and picked up some new hand sanitiser for the camper then drove to Franz Josef. Helen sat up front for once and we had a bit of a natter, there was a huge rainbow over the mountains on the way. We just managed to arrive in Franz as a beep came out of the dash telling my to refuel urgently. We pulled in to the info site and booked our trip then went for a wander round town. The price of diesel was ridicuous, $1.20, we had to put some in, so I just popped $30 in making sure I definately picked the right nozzle this time. The only supermarket in town was a Four Square, everything was expensive in there as well. The girls and I had pie and beans for lunch.

We drove up to the glacier along the most bumpy road ever and went for a couple of walks in the afternoon, and then drove back to town and had a look at the indoor ice-wall where some kid was attempting the over-hang, it looked really hard. I attempted to nap at about 4 becuase I had another poor night sleep but couldn't sleep at all. I got down from the 'den' once we had moved to a layby where it was stricktly no camping but we had no other choice, we couldn't afford to stay at a camp site unnecessarily. The others cooked a spag-bol which was awesome and we spent the night playing Billionaire again. Laura managed to get to a billion and we began from the start again. We attempted to watch Superbad before going to bed but fell asleep whilst watching it.

08/04/09

Rich's alarm went off at 7, I was still awake though, although I had had a fairly decent night for once. Rich drove us back to the info centre to reduce the chance of being clamped at the no camping area and we stayed in bed for a while longer.

I finally got up and attempted to phone home, the woman in the global gossip was hoovering and the phone was in the least private spot so I just spent an hour on the net and went back to the camper. We drove to a Top Ten holiday park and asked if we could use their showers, the woman at reception was really rude to me and had a real problem with freedom campers, she said it wasn't on that we drive around and hop in to and out of holiday parks dumping our waste and showering and never paying for anything. I was willing to pay for a shower but she was having none of it, so we went down the road and all pikeyed free ones from the Forest Camp site. I went in first to scout the area out, it took me 15 minutes to find them, they were right at the back. I got in the shower and popped it on full power and full heat and thawed out my feet and hands, it felt great. After 5 minutes I noticed that none of the water was draining away, so I quickly washed. When I had finished the water was up to my ankles, I pulled the shower curtain back and noticed that it was all pouring out the door. I finally had a shave, thus putting an end to my attempt at growing a beard, I'd lasted 9 days, it was far to itchy to go on. It felt so nice not having an itchy neck again.

We drove round the corner where we went for another walk, the Tatare Tunnels. It took about half an hour to reach the tunnels. It was so cold in the shade, but when we stepped in to the sunlight it was quite warm, it was just a shame the walk was pretty much all in the shade. We started to walk through the tunnel, which had glacial water running ankle deep through it. After about 10 metres in Laura decided she'd had enough and turned back. Our feet were freezing, it was pitch black and we only had 2 torches between us so the person behind had to shine light in front of the person in front of them. Half way through the tunnel Pat looked up at the ceiling where he saw 2 huge spider looking bugs, we decided not to shine the light upwards any more and carried on fairly fast. We spotted a few glow worms on the way, but nothing compared to Waitomo. When we reached the end there was nothing but a narrow small pathway leading to a tiny waterfall, so we walked back. Laura and I had a natter on the way back down.

We drove back to Four Square and decided to have beans and egg for lunch for a change. I attempted reading but was far too tired, I fell asleep after one chapter and woke up to Helen moaning that it was freezing. She was right, my feet were chilled to the bone still, probably from walking through the water earlier and the fact that it was freezing cold outside. We had to actually huddle under a duvet to stop ourselves shivering. Laura came back from the internet and made us some hot chocolates, they were awesome, and then we played scrabble before driving off to the same spot as last night. It got to half 7 and we were all huddle under blankets and duvets moaning about how cold we were, Laura had 2 pair of socks on, a blanket over her feet and 2 hoodies on and her hands were still freezing. Helen looked as if she'd been on the weight gain and beefed up a bit because she was wearing 2 thick hoodies as well.

09/04/09

Woke up early and braved the arctic temperatures to use the exceloo, it warned me that I had 10 minutes use time before the door automatically opened. We were at the Franz Josef glacier tour shop at 0815, we had to queue for about half an hour to be kitted out with waterproof trousers and jackets with mittens hats boots and crampons. When we got to the river bed near the base the group of 55 was split in to 5 groups, we joined the middle paced group as there was no room in the first one. We set off and the first thing I saw on the trek was a bunch of 4 signs warning; drowning risk; risk of huge wave from falling ice; rock falling on head and ice falling on head.

We arrived at the base of the glacier after an hour trek in to the woods alongside, our guide, Rob, taught us how to put our Crampons on our boots and left us to our new guide, Rob. Rob asked where we were all from, turns out he's from Taunton and knows all about Cotford St. Luke. The first part of the Glacier climb was the hardest, it started off as around 100 steps that the guides had carved out of the glacier using their ice axes about knee height. Rob was saying that he can cut 30 steps an hour, the highest grade guide can apparently cut 50 and hour, it looks like seriously hard work. We continued climbing the glacier and the area soon turned to blue and white ice all over, with massive cravases that we had to start clambering through. The sun was out, we'd again picked the perfect day to do our tour, it was making the ice look really dark blue.

We stopped for a break after an hour or so of climbing, Rob eased our minds and let us know that we could piss anywhere on the glacier and went for one behind a huge rock, shortly after telling us that we could fill our bottles up from the water running on the surface. We pressed on and stopped a few hours later for lunch where we sat on our huge bumb bags that we stored our crampons in. Laura needed to go to the loo so Rob took her and another girl down the side of a huge sheet of ice and left them to do their business. When they go back we ate lunch and sat next to some girl from the states who had forgotten her lunch, she ended up getting more lunch that all of us after people had offered her a nut bar or sandwich each.

We walked for a few more hours and Rob stopped us along the way to teach us the Frans Shuffle, which was a weird method of walking downhill where you have to stand side on and put your higher leg behind your lower and repeat until you get to the bottom. The girls had a quick practice and looked well funny. We only had to use the shuffle a few times, but each time it was a good laugh watching the girls trying to do it without falling on their arses. After a bit of climbing we reached our highest point and stopped for lunch and checked out the view from the top. We had only climbed 400 metres from the bottom but it seemed much higher. While we were stopped Pat asked Rob if we were the highest group up at the moment, Rob didn't hear him so he asked again, Rob replied but Pat didn't hear him this time. A few minutes later Pat asked again and everyone looked at him as though he was some kind of freak wanting a minute by minute update on whether we were the highest group on the glacier or not, we took the piss out of him for a while and then decided to head back down.

We stopped at a crevass and all had a posing session with Robs ice-pick. We stopped at a tiny little tunnelling through the ice. Rob asked if anyone fancied crawling through it, I was the only one up for it. I got on my knees, but it was far too small to crawl through, I had to get pretty much on my belly, but I had my hoody on and didn't fancy getting it soaked so I kind of did an elongated push up all the way through and managed to come out dry. We headed off back to the base and managed to get back in a fraction of the time it took us to get to the top.

When we got back to the tour shop we had to hand back all of our things, Helen managed to steal her mittens and pat his Hat. We then went for some more free showers in the nearby camp site and drove off a few km out of Franz and parked up on the most wonky gravel pit. A guy that was there was laughing at me spending aged trying to find a flat surface until I eventually gave up and just left it on a stupid angle. The table in the back of the cab wouldn't even stay central, it just swung over to the right. It was a full moon and the clearest night ever.