Day 3 : the day we took the hike

I guess I have tormented you enough on the delay for the middle earth post. I realized the reason  I keep on putting it off was because there were too much photos to share and I was to ambitious to make collage out off all of it. So guess what, I decided to give up that ambition today..hehehe..

6th Feb 2012
So, after a good night sleep, we woke up to the fresh breeze of Frans Josef. The motel was just a single row, with pretty roomy compound. One thing I noticed, there are a lot of hydrangeas around.

View from kitchen, mechanics in action, hydrangea, the compound

 After packing things, we head on to the next destination, its only 30 minutes from where we stayed.

We had a booking for half day walk up to the glacier at Fox Glacier Guiding. We were given the hiking gear and windbreaker to prepare for the walk.

The bus took us to the starting point. There were 2 buses on the same trip, and later we were divided to 3 groups. We've decided to go with a senior guide, plus the group that comes with family. The other groups are all made of youngster, we were scared that we will slow them down :P Our guide's name was Grazer, that was his nick name, I forgot his real name though :D We have to wait a bit as the guides went up on a rescue mission. Apparently one lady that was on previous tour sprained her ankle and need some help to get back to the starting point.

There visitors can only walk up to certain points unsupervised. This is because the glacier itself is not stable, and can posed a significant threat to inexperienced hiker. We were glad that we took the tour, it may cost more but it was worth it.

The initial hiking trail was merely rocky roads, but after some 20 minutes, we finally reached the start of glacier. We were asked to don up the crampons to ensure that we can walk on ice. Now its time for Ice ice baby!!

All guides carry with them heaps of equipment. The road is paved everyday, as and when people are walking on it. There are ladies guides too, you know :D

Grazer hard at work, paving our way up..

Some melted glacier on the way

 

Grazer checking the ablation pole

The ablation pole was used to measure how much the glacier had melted. He did mentioned the melting rate, but I have forgotten by now :P

One slit that we saw

Grazer testing the glacier

Me inside one ;)

 Around the glacier, there was also abundance of mud that fit to be made as face mask. Those that have some plastic handy were allowed to take some back. Since we have a spare bottle, we decided to take some back too... :)

Free mud spa supply!!

kaki ku harus enterframe!!!

the melted glacier makes small streams all around

Cute kan?

After some 3 hours later, we started descending. The little hike up the glacier was tiring but definitely was worth it!!

By the time we got back to the guiding company, it was already 3 pm. I will continue the journey in the next post :) till then ciao!!!