Blog 72

Sunrise over the snowy mountains was enough to get us out of bed and wrapped up ready for our walks upto Franz-Josef and Fox Glaciers.

After a short walk through the valley we got our first glimpse of the hunk of compressed snow and GCSE geography became the favourite topic of conversation... Morraine, U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys, cravases and erosion. After several people getting avalanched upon a few years ago, we were only able to get within 200m of the terminal face but pretty awesome all the same. The cheeky Kea who attacked the Chinese couples' bags also added to the excitement.

Unsure whether Franz-Josef was enough to satisfy our glacier fix, we headed onto Fox Glacier. A steeper rockier path wound its way up the valley to the be greeted with a much more epic looking glacier (Thanks Jo). We stood in silence with not a sole around as we listened to the cracking of the ice and the booming of a rocky avalanche tumble down the other side of the valley.

Back to the campervan and we journeyed onto Haast to begin the climb over the pass. As we climbed higher and higher over Haast pass, the landslides became more frequent, snow became deeper, engine became hotter and we grew increasingly nervous that the fuel gauge level on our 18 year old camper wasn't telling us the truth and we were in fact almost out of gas. At last grateful to see the peak of the pass, Bryn put the clutch to the floor and picked up speed on the downhill and we rolled down towards the Lake where we stayed that night. An almost instant pasta and sauce dinner, beer, a roaring camp fire and enough driftwood to keep the for going for several months was all the entertainment we needed before hitting the hay.

Love Jo and Bryn x