Day 5 -- Franz Josef

It was a freeeeeezing morning. Cant imagine going up the glaciers, probably become one myself.

Even the car is frozen.

Activity of the day is a full day hike on the Franz Josef Glacier. Full day means 8 hours. Oh my god. The silly hill at Wanaka almost killed me with a 45 mins hike. THIS IS 8 HOURS! Read this clause on the contract saying we can be evacuated anytime from the hike at our own expense. Hmmm. Haha..

Woooo GLACIER! Alot alot of rocks. Everywhere is paved with rocks basically. Makes walking alone tiring. And the walk from the carpark to the glacier is super long. At least 2km. Rainbow!They had 5 different groups to choose from. Group 1 has to go the fastest and group 5 can take their own sweet time taking pictures and all. So we chose to be in group 5. The guy in red is our guide. He is a Japanese and quite cute too! Hoho.. After the rocks, it is going to be ice all the way. They provided us with the studded thing which helps you walk on ice. Cant remember the term for it.

How am i ever going to reach up there...Steep eh? And thats all the rocks we conquered before we even get to the ice. Total time we're going to spend on the ice is around 6 hrs. To get up the glacier, we had to...

crawl up holes

climb up steep cliffs...

The guide will chop up the ice abit to create some stairs like structure so life is easier for us. and conquer almost vertical glacier blocks.

Water break. Ian sneakily posing behind.

We had our lunch halfway up the climb. Because we're going to climb forever, had to eat something or you'll faint! Thats what they say. And so we had our lunch on the ice and our bums are all numbed when lunch was over.

Blue Glaciers. With some black stuff all over the place. Products of weathering from nearby rocks i'll guess. Geography. :)

Looks quite pretty. But when i'm climbing, really no strength or mood to look around and appreciate nature.

After like 4 hours, we finally got up there. FINALLY. Was so tiring... Now.. we'll have to make our way down. The way we came up. GOSH. How to go down those vertical glacials! Fell a couple of times because it was too slippery and i really cant walk down steep slopes for nuts. In short, I'm clumsy la. Don't really dare to but thats the only way down! ROAR.

The the end of the day, the guide told us we have walked approximately 10km that day. Walk 10km on rocks and ice... I'm impressed i actually survived. I thought i'll have to be evacuated by helicoper halfway.

Went back with some blueblacks and blitters. Not to forget shivering legs and intense muscle ache.

The walk totally burnt out our pathetic 2 pieces of bread we had for lunch. Decided to treat ourselves to something good. But when we got to Hokitika, everything is closed! We only had 2 choices. One was an expensive bar serving food which looked super yummy to 6 very hungry people or an Indian restuarant. Settled for Indian food.

Verdict: Wallet rules over stomach.

Being a typical Singaporean, I missed spicy food. The restuarant allowed us to choose how spicy we want our food to be. There was mild, medium, hot and extra hot. And so, I act smart again and ordered HOT. It was indeed HOT. Thank god Aik khoon helped me with some.. if not i'll tear out all the water i drank. Thats like... 3 glasses?

Lesson of the day: Dont mess with the Indians. They know their spices.