The day I climbed up the Franz Josef Glazier...

I managed to get an early night last night because I knew it would be a long tough day today. I think I had a couple of drinks, did some washing and was in bed by about 10pm. I had a good nights sleep because I moved out of the room Adam was in due to his snoring!

We had to be at the Glacier office to prepare / get kitted up for the hike, at 9am. We all took a wander round to the office which is a fifteen minute walk from the hostel. There were 28 out of the 31 in our group doing the full day glacier walk. We were all pretty excited, although it was raining so hard, some of us werent looking forward to the eight hour trek uphill at all!

We all had to wear waterproof trousers and jackets, hat and gloves and a pair of boots - which remind me of Mums Doctor Martin steel cap toe boots, but these were bigger and uglier, without the steel. I looked like a great big marshmallow by the time I was dressed and had the bumbag around my waist which had the grip-ons (for the boots) in.

We had a ten minute drive to the bottom of the glacier, or so we thought until we got there and we had to walk fifteen minutes through a rainforest, and another 45 minutes next to a stream to the actual bottom of the glacier. This by the way, had worn out most of the group and we hadnt even started our climb! I was panicing a little bit about my knees, it had to be noted down with the nurse back at the office and the guide, Dan, said that he would keep a slow pace and keep an eye on me. I told him that he had better be prepared to carry me on his back, back down the glacier if I was in that much pain. Turns out, he didnt need to, thank God!

So, we started our decent at 10:30. Wow - I was in mega pain with my left knee and we hadnt even got half way. The walk uphill was hard work, you should have seen my face, I was bright red, puffing and panting! Now, I know Im a drama queen, but this was intense stuff and I was a little bit scared because I thought I would have to cause a scene and ask for an air rescue! Im not that bad though and decided to keep going...

We passed through many crevaces along the glacier, some of which were about a foot in depth and we had to take off some clothes and the backpack to get through them! We also passed under and through some ice caves - youll see what I mean by the pictures. It was stunning. The ice was white and in some places blue.

We were all quite hot and bothered so we decided to take a break, eating plenty of chocolate, crisps and sweets - well, we had to keep up our strength!

We hiked up to 600m, which doesnt seem alot, but trust me, it is! The view from the top (well, we were actually only a third of the way up the glacier itself) was gorgeous. There was a low cloud either side of us abover the mountains, again, either side covered with waterfalls and ice.

It started raining again on the way back down, but we didnt mind because we were having such a good time. We even had our pictures taken with our own ice picks!

We got to the bottom at 5:30pm and made our hour walk back to the bus. We were all soaked!

It was amazing though and well worth the pain, although I would NEVER do it again. It was an experience that was definately a 'once in a lifetime' oppurtunity to do! I feel so lucky that I was able to experience the walk on Franz Josef Glazier.