FOX GLACIER - Check Out My Hook Whilst My DJ Revolves It

There's a law of the universe which thus far has not been documented but which I feel needs to documented. It runs something along the lines of: "If your volcano walk is undertaken in blissful heat, then your glacier excursion shall take place in driving rain and shivering cold." This is Colvin's First Law of New Zealand Glacial Thermodynamics.


Fox Glacier. It's like a really, really big block of ice and dirt rolling up and down a valley. Funny, that.

Going to the South Island is like entering another country in many ways. The hills get steeper, the towns generally get smaller and the already edgy people to animal ratios move steadily towards the farmlife (if they ever revolt, this country is in trouble. And I've walked past some *mean* looking cows, let me tell you.) It's pretty inspiring, though, that a country not much bigger than Great Britain can still pull off areas of isolated wilderness where technology is rare, nights are dark and power cuts are not a thing of the past.

Fox Glaicer is one such place. Tucked on the western coast in the shadow of the Southern Alps. Fox and it's slightly bigger brother, Franz Josef, are tiny alpine settlements which have grown in responce to the wonder/exploitation caused by their local glaciers. Nowhere else in the world besides southern Argentina (so I've been told many times this week) have glaciers retreated to such low levels of altitude. Which means that you can do what is usually only done in dodgy altitudes by much burlier mountaineering type people: go stamping across huge glacial landscapes and pull silly poses for cameras.


Now I know what you're thinking. And you may very well be right.

You can do all sorts of ice climbing, helicopter assisted or just plain trekking in these towns. Being a hiker sort of person, and not knowing how my irrational fear of heights would extend to helicopters I plumped for the longest day walk. "Did you check the weather?" I was asked as I handed over my credit card. Of course! That little photocopied sheet on the wall (a staple of any New Zealand tourist attraction. Usually surrounded by beardy types shaking their heads) something about light drizzle, right? That wasn't going to stop us trekking though, was it? Rain being mostly water and glaciers being, pretty much, water as well. "Oh no," she cheerily replied, "we'll walk in the rain."


Hardy ice walkers between rain showers. And, judging by the expressions, I suspect I took this one well after lunchtime and before we stopped for lunch.

What we hadn't quite counted on, and what made glaicer walking a pretty unforgettable experience, was that west coast South Island rain is not just drizzle. It's rain. Real rain. It starts and then doesn't stop for around fifteen hours. Ice walking in the rain is a funny experience. Of course, ice walking in general needs some explanation. Basically, since you're outfitted with crampons (spiky bits for your boots) you can trudge about pretty easily by just stomping and looking out for hidden slopes. Since glaciers are such rapidly changing features (Fox is apparently retreating at a rate of three metres a day) there aren't set paths or anything really resembling steps up and down the near vertical cravasses. On a short walk you may stick in mostly flat areas but, on a day trek, the hard work of making sure you don't plummet to your death is left to your friendly guide who'll spend *hours* hacking out rudimentry steps from the ice. It means every walk feels like its going through completley unchartered territory. Because, even if you did it every day, the ice would change dramatically each time.


Jason our indespensable, somewhat crazy guide. We mutually agreed afterwards that he got a little too excited with that pick-axe.

And all this in the driving rain, when the surface of the ice gets just a little bit more slippery and even a small downhill step or two can look like a one way trip to broken bones. Thankfully, the New Zealand weather fairies decided to give us a break and we got a good hour or so of light drizzle and the chance to whip out cameras and sandwiches from soggy bags (for twelve hours afterwards, having sat in a pool of water for the best part of the day, my phone had a funny habit of constantly vibrating. It survived but it was an interesting massage tool for my left thigh)


Looking down from the ice into the glacial valley. It's a long way down. And, although Jason didn't tell us, we were betting it involved a pick-axe.


And here's me eating lunch and doing product placement for a bad Gore Verbinski movie. A fine moment wearing this hat for the first time having filched it from the University of East Anglia's Concrete office some four years before.

Either through brave resiliance or detirmination to make the most of our ninety dollars, we ploughed on for the entire four hours of the ice walk and managed to get up to some incredible crevasses and blue ice caves. Mutual agreement between myself, Sarah and Brooke (Aussie interior designers and good post glacier drinking buddies) was that it was more tiring than ten hours ploughing up and down Mount Taranaki, but worth every cold and wet cent.


It's blue, it's icy, it's a cave. That'll be one of those blue ice cave things, then.


Mount Cook and Tamsan viewed from Lake Matheson. In early morning this is one of New Zealand's famed postcard shots, with the view reflected in the lake. However, not having a car and having to walk an hour and back, a 4am start seemed pretty unnecessary. It was still jolly pretty.