Franz Josef

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There was heavy rain once again so had a pretty uninteresting drive down to Franz Josef as didn't do many walks or anything as the weather was too bad. We did stop at a place called the Bushman's centre in the morning which was fairly interesting as gave bit of insight into rural life on the west coast. When we arrived at Franz Josef the first thing we had to do was to sort out and pay for the trips we would be doing the following day. I had hoped to do a scenic flight as well as the half day hike on the glacier but due to the continued bad weather the scenic flights weren't going ahead which was a bit of a shame. After sorting out the next days's activities we just had the rest of the day free to had a wander around the town of Franz Josef, which didn't take all that long as its a very small place with just a few shops, most of which are selling souvenirs and things. Having the rest of the day free was a good chance to catch up with some emails and washing and things as well as just taking it easy. After had some dinner just went over to the bar for a few drinks but didn't have a late night or anything as knew had to be up early for hiking the next day.

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First thing we had to do in the morning was to go and register for the hike with the Glacier guides and fill in forms and get all the necessary equipment. It took a while to get all that on as had special boots, trousers, jacket, hat, gloves etc. Once we were all ready we were driven down to where we would start the hike, and from there it was a pretty tough hike getting up to the glacier itself as was over some pretty rocky ground. We were lucky as it wasn't raining when we set off but it did start raining again soon enough! The glacier hike was quite tough but you could chose which group to go with depending on how confident you were so was good that could go at a slower pace if you wanted to. A lot of the hike involved climbing up steep steps of ice but at the most tricky parts there were also ropes you could hold on to. There was a tunnel made of blue ice which was very impressive but that was quite tricky to get through and you pretty much had to crawl through. The glacier is pretty amazing and very unique being set in a rainforest so in a way it would have been good to have longer to explore the glacier itself but bearing in mind the weather conditions a couple of hours on the ice was probably enough. We had to do the same hike down to get back, the only problem was that with the rain the water levels had risen a lot at the bottom of the glacier which made the final part of the hike much trickier.  After the tiring hike I just relaxed for the rest of the day and myself and the other girls went to have dinner in the bar and had a few drinks over there too which was nice way to finish off the day!