Day 15: Fox Glacier Tour

Our day started off with a tour of the local glacier (pronounced glay-cee-ur, in New Zealand speak).  We were fitted with crampons (my first time!), given rain gear (of course, it's supposed to rain), and sent up the trail to the glacier. 

I don't know quite how to describe this experience, but I will try.  The guide company had steps carved into the side of the glacier to provide us access to the top.  This was a very slushy climb to get started with.  Also, it was my first time ever wearing crampons and to be honest with you, it takes a bit of getting used to.  To walk in these things and get a good grip of the ice requires that you stomp your feet into the ice.  So, basically I spent my day stomping around on the ice!!!

Also, there was a lot of up and down in the little adventure.  Now, I will remind everyone of my amazing confidence I had going over the pass on the Milford Track.  I really expected to be rather ungraceful in my new icy environment.  But not so!  It's amazing how well one can move with  pair of crampons over an icy surface.  I just loved it!

Our guide was a Canadian girl named Avalon just out of high school.  She assured us that she was well trained and that she would be able to pull us out of any crevasses should one of us decide to fall into one.  She did advise that we not fall into a crevasse that we couldn't see the bottom of since that would be a rather long drop and we're not quite sure her rope would be long enough! Yikes!

We got to explore ices caves and check out an ice arch.  It was such great fun scampering all over this magnificent work of nature. 

The glacier tour was over around 3 pm, so we had time to jump over the Franz Joseph glacier, a mere 20 minute drive away.  We did the walk to the glacier terminus in the late afternoon and then headed back to Fox for a relaxing evening.

Tomorrow, we head off over Arther's Pass to the Christchurch area.  It will be interesting to see how things are coming along on that part of the island.