as cold as ice
from nelson it was not long before we were entering greymouth, and its name for southern hospitality. A very sleepy and relaxed town, where the rather strange-humoured man at the hostel proceeded to stand outside the office and explain the ins and outs, pausing every few minutes to take a swig from his bottle of beer.
the (only) highlight of the town itself was the brewery tour of monteiths beer, which included all the barbecued sausages you can eat at a pub down the road. apart from a browse round the brewery and the various production processes, the more obviously exciting build up was for the sampling at the end. no disappointments at all in that area, as we were given 8 varieties to try, followed by a fantastic 20 minutes of ´free pouring´ where we were left alone to pull our own beers from the taps at our leisure. As you can imagine, we were a very merry crowd of backpackers when we arrived at the pub to claim another free beer of our favourite variety : )
the next morning was bright and early once again as the bus travelled further to the one street stop of franz josef, which would not be of huge intrigue if it werent for its stunning backdrop of snowy mountains, and famous mainly for the rather unique activity of glacier hiking and ice-climbing. i could not come this far and not give it a go, so before the day had ended i found myself donned in a raincoat that came down to my knees, waterproof trousers, and boots that were 3 sizes too big for me (with 3 pairs of socks on to make up for it). the weather in all honesty was miserable. bleak, raining and bitterly cold, but the sunny disposition, although somewhat annoying, of our glacier guide, helped to brighten the dreariness of the clouds a little. its hard not to smile when a hyper man with overpoweringly white teeth keeps giving you the thumbs up saying, ´are you excited?!´ and ´supa!´.
i was surprised at how quickly i got used to the cramp ons attached to the boots, where the only way to ensure you wouldnt slip downwards was to ´walk with confidence´ as the guide put it, firmly and swiftly stamping down (toes first) and pulling yourself up. snow tunnels and crevaces were the most unreal formations to walk through, and were not for those overly claustrophic (being smaller i didnt suffer this quite as much). unfortunately the weather wasnt as clear as it coud have been, overcast, and snowing (conditions which apparently do not happen often that low down on the glacier), but there were moments when you could see a blue luminoscity emitting from the crevace of ice. i imagine this would be even more prominent on a clearer day, but no less impressive to me!
