Gla
cier to prepare for a trip on to the Glacier. The Hostel was lovely and at 8.15am we were ferried to the start of the Glacier day. This is one of only 3 temperate glaciers in the world.. the other 2 being at Fox(just down the road, and in South America, so a good chance to investigate. Our guides Tom and Bruce(Bruce being from Suffolk...disappointing with a name like that in this part of the world!!) organised us with crampons/ice axes etc and off we went.Three large ice-falls and we were going to explore the first one and a half(ice too unstable from there upwards) so a 6 hr day ahead of us.
looking diappointingly black and dirty,the initial part of the 1st fall consisted of large chunks of ice(some the size of double-decker buses) and rock which seemed to teeter threateningly above us. Some struggling through narrow crevasse-like falls led us up to the second field which was much more impressive, with even bigger blocks, seracs and pinnacles. Lunch was taken (about 10 mins and then back we came by a different route. Unfortunately Bruce, our guide took a wrong turn and we ended up following a very difficult crack which led us to a dead end. On turning
around(which was quite difficult as the cracks were only body width, guess who fell into an ice pool blocking our way? The guy in front of me bridged his way across and, as he pushed off a narrow ledge with one foot...I followed, but too my horror, the ledge collapsed and left me without any purchase !! In I went up to the waist in ice-cold water...I was more worried about my camera getting wet than anything else and struggled to get a grip with my crampons, which fortunately I did...and recovered....phew!!!! The rest of the day went without further mishap and we returned a little colder, but none the worse for our experiences(bottle of wine and pizza later and all was well with the world). Camera also seems to have recovered after two days drying out!
On to Wanaka(yes I know it's a quirky name...but wow what a lovely place), to prepare for the Bungy Jump tomorrow!!P.S. Pam's efforts to save herself from the mossies at the last hut on the Abel Tasman walk actually failed....she just took longer to react..some days later up came the little itchy bumps and now who's laughing???(unbeknown to her one of the little blighters got into the bag before her!!)
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