We
arrived in Franz Josef late afternoon after a very wet and cloudy drive from
Queenstown. However, the next morning started beautiful as we began our walk
along the glacier valley with a tour guide. While this brought back memories of
school geography field trips, the scenery and information were of another order
– it certainly beat trudging around damp Dorset beaches. After returning to the
UK, we were comparing photos of the trip with someone who’d visited NZ and
Franz Josef fifteen years ago - as glaciers are “living”, changing shape and
form, we were all shocked to see how much the glacier had receded in that time.
All
the time we were on the walk there was a background clatter of helicopters
flying up the valley to land on the glacier. Disappointed that we’d missed out
on our hot air balloon trip and the flight to Milford Sound, when we returned
to the tour building, we checked for availability to take a flight. Stand aside
Brian Cox and David Attenborough, it was our turn to see nature from the air.
This was our first time in a helicopter and we were both surprised at how
smooth it was. In the morning from the ground, the glacial terminus had looked
very dirty as a result of rock breaking up and discolouring the snow and ice,
but landing on pristine snow was such a contrast.
It
was only that evening, as I was reviewing my photos on our laptop that I
noticed some “marks” on the glacier. Blowing the photo up, I realised the marks
were actually people making their way across the crevasses – it suddenly dawned
on me the sheer scale and size of the glacier. Telling Sue, she commented that
the pilot had remarked about people down on the glacier looking like ants, something
I’d obviously missed at the time.
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