OK, so my last post took us to leaving the TranzAlpine train at Arthur's Pass. We transferred to a bus to continue the journey to Greymouth. The scenery continued to be dramatic, with some quite remarkable stretches of road. Periodically, the Otira tunnel is closed for routine maintenance. On these occasions, passengers have to leave the train and go on by bus. While not as luxurious or as roomy as the train, the bus gave us views we wouldn't have seen, so no complaints :-) You can see a few photos from the journey here
We had about 40 minutes in Greymouth before we caught our InterCity bus down to Fox Glacier. We had a couple of stops along the way, and we had commentary - both of which seem to be a feature of most of the bus journeys down here. We reached the village of Fox Glacier around 6pm and checked into our hostel. We ate at The Last Kitchen and sampled one of the local beers - "Mac". Andy had the gold and I had the red. Both very acceptable. I went for a wander round the village as dusk approached, and we were treated to a gorgeous sunset.
Next morning, Andy came back very enthusiastic from Lake Matheson, and suggested we consider going down at the end of the day - assuming we still fancy the 10-12km round trip walk, plus the 2-3km round the lake itself.
Our check-in time for the glacier walk was 9:10, so we had breakfast at the Hobnail Cafe next door. After check-in we were given crampons and a safety briefing. There were 24 of us all told, and we piled in the bus for the 10 minute drive to the Glacier access point. There were road crews busy when we got there. Apparently, though the glacier has retreated from the current site of the car park, there's still ice under the ground there so they have to carry out maintenance work to keep the road usable.
We were split into two groups of a dozen and a guide with each group. For some reason, thsi trip there were three guides, so we ended up with two. Again, no complaints ;-)
We had a walk in of about 2km, and then we put on our crampons. A few hundered metres later we were also given walking poles, and then we were on to the ice. It was an absolutely brilliant experience. We were really fortunate with the weather with almost uninterrupted blue sky and sunshine. We heard about why ice crystals on the surface are white, while the deep dense ice is blue - it's to do with wavelengths of light being reflected. We also heard that the glacier retreats by about 500-600 metres/year. So, only a few decades ago, the glacier was where the car park now sits. We saw some great looking crevasses - but they weren't the deepest. Glaciers in the New Zealand Southern Alps can't get any deeper than about 80 metres. We were told about holes that develop in the ice, called "moulins". Here's an explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_%28geology%29
And we got to stand in some great structures where a hole started, then got widened by the wind, then starts to melt and eventuually collapses and disappears.
Lunch was a matter of finding a group of rocks where we could all perch. I stood my day bag in a nice piece of ice - only to find it was in fact a perfectly clear puddle several inches deep. After lunch, I wore my waterprooof while my bag dripped and dried out on my back. D'oh!
All too soon, it was time to walk out. It had been a great trip, and I'd recommend it to anyone. The advice before the day was that a reasonable level of fitness was needed. In the end, it was a lot less demanding than I expected. I had anticipated a lot more walking, with a lot more up - but we had much more time to wander about and be amazed at how a glacier looks. Awesome - really, a sense of awe.
When we got back to Fox Glacier, we felt up for Lake Matheson. It's famous as the mirror lake, where you can see reflections of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. This wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Matheson should give you some idea. So, we walked to Lake Matheson, with the intention of getting some reflection photos. We hoped we might get some sunset photos too, then come back for something to eat. However, when we got there we found that the Lake Matheson Cafe had started evening opening - presumably the season had got going enough for the owners. Hurrah! We amended our plans to eat there and stay until after it got dark to attempt some night sky photos too.
The walk round was easy going and we had several photo opportunities. The weatehr wasn't perfectly still, so there were some ripples on the lake. We wondered if this would stop us getting good reflection shots, but we found a couple of spots where there was enough still water to give us the sort of pictures we'd hoped for.
Having said it was easy going, we'd spent a lot of the day on our feet, so we were glad to get back to the cafe to "take the weight off". Pizzas and beer sat outside watching the light just start to fade over Mounts' Cook and Tasman was a delight. And sure enough, the mountains turned orange and pink, and finally it started to get dark. So we found a suitable spot facing west and had a go at getting the sunset. I got one shot, with my Panasonic point&shoot that I was particularly pleased with - but thanks are due to Andy for his advice. Once the sun had properly set, we then tried to get star photos. Andy managed to get the Milky Way with his Canon SLR. My options with my Panasonic were much more limited, with the only options for long shutter speeds being 4 seconds, 15 seconds and 30 seconds. I managed to get a couple of shots nonetheless.
Photos and more excursion news to follow when we next get a good connection.
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