On the way to Franz Josef we stopped off at the Bushman Centre to learn about deer farming. The deers that were introduced to New Zealand had become a problem in the 70's as there were too many of them so people were employed as hunters to get rid of them. We watched a video of how they did this. There were many hunters on foot but this took time so some people people came up with the idea of shooting them from helicopters. People came to like the taste of deer meat so they decided not to kill them anymore but capture them and put them in farms. So now some crazy people jumped out of the helicopters and landed on the deers back and wrestled it to the ground!! Then came the better method of a net gun. They would fly over the deers in the helicopter shoot the net over the animal and then tie it to the helicopter and lift it to the farm several at a time! It was a very interesting film.

We carried on through some stunning views of mountain ranges with snow on top. When we got to Franz Josef we went to the glacier hiking centre to get booked in for the next day. Most people were doing the full day hike. We then went to our hostel where we would stay the next 2 nights called Rainforest Retreat. It was very nice with a massive kitchen. That evening in the bar was a rock, paper scissors competition to win a free canyon swing in Queenstown. I entered even though I didnt want to win as it was our bus against another bus and I wanted to win it for someone on our bus. I lost in the first round but I did quite well as it took 5 attempts for him to beat me. In the end a girl from the other bus won who looked like Lady Gaga. After that we all went to bed early for our busy day ahead of us.

The next morning we got our layers on and made ourselves a packed lunch and walked to the office just around the corner. At the office we were given an identification necklace, some over trousers, a rain jacket, a bum bag with crampons in and some boots. When everone had these we all got on the red bus outside. It was about a 10 minute drive to the start of the walk. We first had to walk through a forest to get to the valley on the other side from there we could see the glacier poking inbetween 2 mountains. A glacier is a moving piece of ice. It is formed from a build up of snow on top of the mountain. The weight of the snow above makes the snow underneath turn to ice. The weight from above also forces the ice down the mountain. This is the fastest moving glacier in the world. It was still quite a long way away and would take about 45 minutes to get to the ice. There were 33 of us so we needed to get into 3 groups of 11. The boys all went in group 1 which was supposed to be the fastest group. The rest of us stayed as one big group as the other guide was already on the ice and we were to meet him there. So Chris guided us across the valley towards the bottom of the glacier. At the bottom there was a big pile of fallen rocks from an averlanche a year ago. We had to climb up and over these to get to the ice. It was really steep and by I got to the top I was quite hot and a bit out of breath. Chris told us that that was the hardest part of the day over with, so that was good. At the top we met Richard the other guide and were shown how to put our crampons on our boots. We then split into 2 more groups. I went with Richard in group 3.

We began our journey onto the ice. At first it was dirty ice from the fallen rocks but it soon became bright white and in some places blue ice. The ice seemed to be in layers standing up, like books on a bookshelf but with jagged tops. We made our way along a narrow path and up stairs that were cut into the ice. We were getting used to our crampons and became a bit more confident as we realised we werent going to slip. We came to a little tunnel in the ice and took it in turns to squeeze through. Some parts were really steep and we had to use a rope to help pull ourselves up or hold onto on the way down. We zig zagged through the glaciergradually getting higher and higher. We stopped for lunch and sat on the ice to eat it.

After lunch we practised going up some really steep steps that were not big enough to fit your whole foot on like normal. The technique was called the Franz shuffle. You had to put your feet sideways on the steps and if going up cross your legs infront and if going down cross your legs behind. You had to cross your feet as there wasnt room for 2 feet on one step. Practise over we went to try it out on a steep climb. By this point my boots had started to rub on my heels which slowed me down a little bit on the uphill part. This was also quite hard work but fortunately it wasnt steep for too long. We then came to some crevices in the glacier. Richard explained how to get through them as at some points it will be too narrow for your hips to fit through and you would have to shuffle sideways. The crevices were 2 walls of ice either side of you and we had to walk in single file and squeese through the gap. You need to be quite slim to do this part as it was a real squeeze! After a few crevices we reached the highest point on the glacier we were allowed to go to. It is also the highest you can go on any glacier in the world! We had a group photo taken there and then started to make our way back down.

We walked a different way back down which didnt involve any crevices or tunnels so it was fairly quick in comparison to the way up. On the way down we saw 2 alpine parrots called Kea's. When we got to the bottom of the ice we took our crampons off and walked down the rubble mountain in our boots. We then walked back across the valley through the forest and into the bus. We got back to the office at about 6pm and at last I could take off my boots. I had a lovely big blister on my right heel. But it was worth it, it had been a fabulous day. Completly different to anything else. That evening I made my dinner, had a shower and went to bed as I was quite tired after my adventurous day.