NZ Day 8 - 28 Oct
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Started our day quite early today as we needed to travel down to Fox
Glacier and wish to avoid the mistake that we made in Lake Tekapo by starting
out late and ended up in Te Anau late, tired and miserable.
The night before in Queenstown, we were checking out Fox Glacier and realized that we need to book the guided tour if we wish to explore Fox Glacier and decides to book the latest schedule available at 2.45pm.
It was a relatively pleasant drive from Queenstown to Fox Glacier as we took the scenic route. Although the route is winding, the sceneries was really good and as we gets closer to Fox Glacier, the dense forest on the side of the road made the drive a really pleasant one. The forest felt like Jurassic Park forest, but in a cold climate.
Reached Fox Glacier at 2pm, but got lost abit as we could not locate our B&B location and end up reaching our very nice B&B at about 2.20pm. After a very fast briefing by our host on what to wear and bring to the Fox Glacier, we reached the tour station at 2.35pm just in time to gear up (wearing their boots and jacket) and head to Fox Glacier.
There are two packages offered in the Fox Glacier website and the one that we chose, mentioned that the tour is family friendly. Therefore, we conclude that it is a relatively relaxing and easy walk… we are SO WRONG. We forgot that being family friendly does not mean that the tour is Sylvia friendly.
We had to trek through rocks and climb on top of rocks to ascend upwards towards the top of the mountain so that the group can descend down to the glacier top and hike on the glacier top and explore the glacier.
I got to the point just before the descent, on top of the mountain and looking at the descend route, which has not visible steps, I chicken out. I told the group to go ahead with the glacier hike while I wait there at the mountain top for them.
I may have sounded abit harsh on the trekking part, but the whole glacier itself is really beautiful. It is an overwhelming feeling when you realized that these glacier that you are staring at is unfinished pieces right from Ice Age and you are actually seeing a real piece of artifact right from Ice Age where you can get so close to. The feeling is really awesome!
Although I did not travel with them to the glacier, it was wonderful sitting on the mountain top, looking at the surrounding and admiring the glacier. To me, I do not have to touch nature, step on nature or conquer it; I am content to live alongside nature and live together with it.
However, the weather at the area is indeed cold and after a short while sitting there, I found myself feeling sleepy. Not a good sign as it may indicate that my body is trying to shut down to conserve energy since it is really cold. I forced myself to stand up and started jogging on the spot to get warm. So, it is quite a experience for me because I trekked to the top of the mountain, next to the ancient glacier.
Initially, we wanted to book trekking at Fox Glacier for one day and Franz Josef for the other day, but decide to book the Fox Glacier first and we are so glad that we did not book the Franz Josef one too, because I will never want to go on the trek again after knowing how difficult it was for Fox Glacier trek.
By the time we got to the tour station, we were really tired and hungry and stopped by one of the place that our host recommended for dinner.
Since we had a long and tiring day, we decide to have an early night to prepare for our walking around tomorrow.
The night before in Queenstown, we were checking out Fox Glacier and realized that we need to book the guided tour if we wish to explore Fox Glacier and decides to book the latest schedule available at 2.45pm.
It was a relatively pleasant drive from Queenstown to Fox Glacier as we took the scenic route. Although the route is winding, the sceneries was really good and as we gets closer to Fox Glacier, the dense forest on the side of the road made the drive a really pleasant one. The forest felt like Jurassic Park forest, but in a cold climate.
Reached Fox Glacier at 2pm, but got lost abit as we could not locate our B&B location and end up reaching our very nice B&B at about 2.20pm. After a very fast briefing by our host on what to wear and bring to the Fox Glacier, we reached the tour station at 2.35pm just in time to gear up (wearing their boots and jacket) and head to Fox Glacier.
There are two packages offered in the Fox Glacier website and the one that we chose, mentioned that the tour is family friendly. Therefore, we conclude that it is a relatively relaxing and easy walk… we are SO WRONG. We forgot that being family friendly does not mean that the tour is Sylvia friendly.
We had to trek through rocks and climb on top of rocks to ascend upwards towards the top of the mountain so that the group can descend down to the glacier top and hike on the glacier top and explore the glacier.
I got to the point just before the descent, on top of the mountain and looking at the descend route, which has not visible steps, I chicken out. I told the group to go ahead with the glacier hike while I wait there at the mountain top for them.
I may have sounded abit harsh on the trekking part, but the whole glacier itself is really beautiful. It is an overwhelming feeling when you realized that these glacier that you are staring at is unfinished pieces right from Ice Age and you are actually seeing a real piece of artifact right from Ice Age where you can get so close to. The feeling is really awesome!
Although I did not travel with them to the glacier, it was wonderful sitting on the mountain top, looking at the surrounding and admiring the glacier. To me, I do not have to touch nature, step on nature or conquer it; I am content to live alongside nature and live together with it.
However, the weather at the area is indeed cold and after a short while sitting there, I found myself feeling sleepy. Not a good sign as it may indicate that my body is trying to shut down to conserve energy since it is really cold. I forced myself to stand up and started jogging on the spot to get warm. So, it is quite a experience for me because I trekked to the top of the mountain, next to the ancient glacier.
Initially, we wanted to book trekking at Fox Glacier for one day and Franz Josef for the other day, but decide to book the Fox Glacier first and we are so glad that we did not book the Franz Josef one too, because I will never want to go on the trek again after knowing how difficult it was for Fox Glacier trek.
By the time we got to the tour station, we were really tired and hungry and stopped by one of the place that our host recommended for dinner.
Since we had a long and tiring day, we decide to have an early night to prepare for our walking around tomorrow.
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