Ice Ice Baby

(Written 15/12, 15.06) 

We have just returned to our hostel from "The Ice Explorer" hike on Franz Josef. It was yet another incredible experience! 

On arrival to Franz Josef town - another town that seems to exist due to its proximity to a natural spectacle - we had been warned that rain was coming and this meant any helicopter trips were likely to be cancelled. Given our tight schedule on this trip, any postponement would mean missing something else at the back end of the trip. Luckily (again!) we awoke to no rain, a cloud line higher above the mountains, and the sound of helicopters flying! Let the good times roll...

When we arrived at the shop, we were kitted up with waterproofs, boots, woolly hats and gloves, and crampons (spikes that attach to the boots). Next stop, the helicopter field! I never really appreciated how cool an invention the helicopter is until I had been up close and sat in one today! The take-off and acceleration were rapid, and then suddenly we were flying in the clouds through the mountains to land on the glacier! And, oh boy, the first sight of the glacier was mind-blowing: a huge expanse of steeply declining ice filling a valley between the towering snow-capped mountains. 

Only when we got out of the helicopter and onto the ice did we understand how effective and how necessary the crampons actually are! It took a little while to trust their grip on the otherwise very slippery ice! We began our ice exploration and it was a great deal of fun. On our climb of the glacier we traversed narrow tunnels, ice caves (one of which was particularly memorable due to the depth and darkness), and seriously steep natural staircases! Our guides actually had to carve out some of the staircases with axes because so much structural change occurs each day - at the top point Franz Josef moves 5 metres per day! The higher we climbed, the more impressive the blue of the ice (due to greater density higher up). You had to really stomp your feet to dig into the more dense and more slippery blue ice at certain stages! Apparently in some of the deeper caves the ice even starts looking purple! The tunnels also became tighter higher up - by the end we were having to actually squeeze and balance on the walls at obscure angles to get through! Definitely not a party for claustrophobics! Throughout the exploration the spectacular ice forms against the backdrop of the fold-mountains did not fail to impress.

As we returned to the helicopter landing site, the rain amped up and the clouds descended upon us. We caught the last two helicopters down to ground before a temporary suspension of helicopter service due to the weather! Lucky, lucky! The helicopter ride was again awesome - possibly even more so with the rain beating down and the low misty clouds. Through our exploration of New Zealand, it feels like we are living the movies! 

For me:

One more thing. Seeing all of these huge natural feats - volcanoes, lakes, beaches, glaciers, rainforests, islands - ties in nicely with the perspective that the Soul of the Universe (i.e. energy) exists in everything and changes in the manifestations of said energy mean nothing except in the material plane that we stigmatise. Father Physics is god and Mother Nature is demigod. But of course we might as well play in the material world and try to do good by it while we are here.