Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Thursday, 8 Nov 2007: Fox Glacier

Woke up quite late today and had breakfast - bacon & egg sandwiches and a cup of tea at a nearby cafe. Initially we planned and booked for Fox Glacier Heli Hike at Fox Glacier Guiding
at 12 noon, but it was a cloudy day and therefore the heli flight was cancelled :(

So we decided to just take the Fox Trot Half Day Walk, since there's nothing much to do in that area other than seeing the glacier, which was what we wanted. Before leaving, we were equipped with sturdy leather boots and crampons. Waterproof jacket, trousers and backpacks were also available upon requests.

We took a bus ride for a short drive through the rainforest to the glacier valley. And then the walk started beside the river bed, crossing the small river, and then to the zig-zag tracks uphill for 30 mins through rainforest. There are only 3 places in the world in which you can stand in rainforest while enjoying the glacier beauty: fox glacier, the neighbouring franz josef glacier, and another glacier in South America.


Once we're out of the rain forest and entering the ice area, we put on our crampons at the sole of our leather boots. We're informed to walk like an angry 3 year old kid, stomping our feet on the ground with legs slightly apart from each other. We also picked up a wooden stick to help us wander through the ice - it carries around 7% of our body weight.

We went up and down the glacier mountain, went through and posed in one ice cave, and of course, took lots and lots of photos. Whenever thirsty we could just pick up a tiny bit of ice and eat it.. it's quite refreshing, really.. just need to make sure that we picked the clean one :) lots of rock sediments make the glacier looks dirty.. but I guess the mud is good for skin treatment.



We went down hill through the same rainforest track. The whole walk took us 4.5 hours in total, started at 2pm and ended at 6.30pm. It's quite tiring but it's worth all the trouble.

Today's dinner: boss hog ribs which was really huge.

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