Ice Ice Baby - 4 happenings, 3 admirers, 2 easy girls and 1 fit bloke!

Now Franz Josef...puh ha-haha!!!!...where do I even begin with this one! The fact that I am sitting here giggling to myself as I write this ...you can guess that it was indeed quite eventful in Franz Josef!

In fact, those two days that we spent in Franz Josef were probably the most action packed and eventful of any two consecutive days of our travels so far and it wasn't just all laughs I can tell you that!

So let's start right from the beginning.... (sorry this is gonna be one hell of a long blog entry!)

We left Greymouth bright and early in the morning and on the way to Franz Josef we stopped at The Bushman Centre, famous for its possum pies (what?!)and museum dedicated to deer hunting (even more what?!).

So yeah, possums are considered pests in New Zealand (80 million of these little buggers! Apparently, each New Zealander has to roadkill 9 each year just to keep the possum population down! For reference, NZ is the land of sheep yet there are only 39 million sheep!) and so you know what the owner does, he captures these possums, skins them and then minces them up to fill his puff pastry pies! Now I'll usually try most delicacies and I was all ready to try this gourmet possum pie and quite happily disregard the images of those cute caramel possums curled up to sleep in a wildlife sanctuary in Oz in my head. However, after seeing the live ones that they kept in cages for visitors to view, I just could not stomach a possum pie. And before you wonder, no no, it wasn't that I was suddenly faced with cute caramel possums....if I'd seen them, I probably could have still eaten my pie.....it was the fact that these possums looked like dirty, twitchy oversized rats!!!!! Eeeewww! No way, I was going to have those disgusting things in me!

As mentioned before, the Bushman Centre also had a museum dedicated to deer hunting. Why? Because the owner used to be a deer hunter himself and so pride of place in this little makeshift museum was a video of how deer hunting takes place and believe me, this was certainly no David Attenborough documentary...this was a nitty gritty shortfilm showing the various ways of how deer are hunted in the hills and mountains.......men jumping out of helicopters onto the deer, men firing shotgun nets at the poor animals who become caught and entangled, deer being dragged along the hillside or tied upside down by their hind legs and airlifted over the mountains back to ground.....all shown with pumping action film music in the background........the scenes were not pleasant....in fact....there was a disclaimer/warning that this was 'not suitable for adults or kids from bambi land!"! Don't get me wrong, the film doesn't glorify deer hunting....it just shows you what goes on in order for us to enjoy our venison steak!

Star of the place though was this gigantic porker who if sat on me would have flattened me to a pancake! I felt sorry for the poor chap who was picked on involuntarily by the owner to get into the enclosure....hold out a piece of bread then wait.......!!! And believe me, I cannot emphasize how huge this pig was!

Franz Josef was one of the places (along with the Sounds – Milford and Doubtful) that I had wanted to visit most in New Zealand. Famous for its glacier, there were three things that I had wanted to do whilst I was here. The first being hiking up the glacier, the second being ice climbing in the glacier and the last kayaking in Lake Mapourika in surroundings that changed dramatically from glorious glacier landscape to lush tropical forest. So two out of three wasn’t that bad considering we only had a day and a half there and with my budget quickly whittling away! (The heli hike was recommended …10 minutes on a helicopter up to the glacier then a hike down…for $360!!!! – nice but maybe one for next time!)

First up was the kayaking on the evening we arrived. After having kayaked down the Mekong River in Vang Vieng and in the sea in Halong Bay and not being able to kayak in the Abel Tasman National Park, we were all excited for our sunset trip out on Lake Mapourika. The pictures on the brochure looked absolutely amazing….the sunset lighting up the lake waters against a glacial backdrop. So obviously cos we were there, it was nothing like that whatsoever. Haha! We really weren’t having much luck with the weather in NZ! The sky was grey and thick with cloud……sun??? What sun???!!!! But despite that….it was another amazing kayaking experience for us. There was no one else on the lake but our kayaking group and although, it was too misty to see the glacier, the surroundings were still pretty cool and it was weird to kayak from glacier landscape to kayaking through vegetation in a tropical forest!

Haha and we had to all wear safety and waterproof gear (none of that malarkey in South East Asia where they practically threw you into the kayak and you actually had to ask for a buoyancy vest….hmm, notice some minor differences in safety attitudes??!)….a waterproof skirt (which made me look like a weird can can dancer), a buoyancy vest and then a rain jacket on top of all this in case it rained…..haha…..I looked huge and one major fashion disaster !(Hehe glad the guide wasn’t fit!) Like sumo wrestler cross with can can dancer gone wrong!!!!

And both Michelle and I – well, our ages have regressed to the state where I think our family and friends should be worried! Um, as we looked like sumo wrestlers, we thought it would be funny to try and front body slam into each other like sumo wrestlers do……oh yes, we did….giggling our heads off as we tried to jump into each other….much to the amusement of everyone else who were far more mature than the both of us including the ten year old kid (who was there with his mum and dad) who…er didn’t act half as silly as we did! To make me feel better, let’s just say that he was just jealous that he wasn’t as cool as us….cos we were so cool….haha…la…la…la…..! I feel good for being better than a ten year old. Ok, start worrying!!!

There was also this Irish guy in our kayaking group who had never kayaked before. (Before anyone says anything…no I was not going to say he was fit…(because he was not in anyone was wondering!)). But that didn’t stop him from zooming out miles in front of everybody! I mean, Michelle and I were the only ones who had kayaked before but we just took it leisurely at a relaxed pace (to be fair, we wanted to show off but it was kind of hard trying to kayak when your arms were weighed down and in a more awkward position than usual due to wearing a waterproof skirt, a buoyancy vest and a rain jacket…all three which were about 10 sizes too big for me by the way!!!!) Anyways, he got his embarrassment (never not believe in kama people) when he kayaked too far down and got entangled in all the weeds in this really narrow part of the lake. Haha - is it bad that we were giggling silently to ourselves as this Irishman went round and round in circles in the same spot in a kayak looking like he was fighting with some vicious overgrown weeds!!!!!

And to keep up with our kayaking experiences…..we managed to get our guide to do what our two previous ones had done for us. Although I have to admit,  this cookie was abit tougher to persuade ….after all, he was this 6 ft 4 guy and there were 6 other people besides us but once we lagged behind and got him on his own in a quiet spot of the lake we managed to…..(no, not that for those of you with less of a saintly mind!)….sing for us!!! And to keep up with tradition…..he sang a maori song to us….so there we were kayaking side by side with our guide as he serenaded us with a traditional maori song in the middle of a beautiful lake…glacier on one side (even though we couldn’t see it for the stupid clouds!) and forest on the other in the middle of NZ (who would have thought that 6 months ago hey?)

Kayaking finished quite late in the evening and by the time we had had a hot shower and some food, we (along with another girl Lucy in our dorm) were tucked up in bed ready for a good night's sleep for our early morning start the following day for the full day glacier hike.

(Now, let me just describe to you our dorm room. It was an ensuite with 6 beds.....the room was kind of separated into two....one bunk and a single on each side of the room. Anyways, Michelle and I had claimed the bunk beds on the furthest side of the room (which was almost hidden from view as it was round the corner of the L shaped room) as we had arrived in there first. Then Lucy had claimed the single bed on the near side. Then came along 2 Irish girls and since they were together, they took the bunk beds right next to Lucy).

Anyways, so much for a good night's sleep. First of all....when I got into the shower, my arms started to throb with pain and by the time I was in bed.....I was in so much pain that I could not move my arms at all! In fact they were so excruciatingly painful that I almost  curled up and cried.......except I couldn't because it was too damn painful for me to do so!!!!! So my next thought was that I should get some painkillers but that would have required me having to actually get out of bed.....and guess what, I couldn't because again it was too damn painful for me to do so! How the hell did that happen from an easy 3.5 hour kayaking trip???! We kayaked in Halong Bay for 18km in the sea and my arms weren't half as bad as they were now!!! And since Michelle didn't say anything....I didn't want to seem like a totally unfit wuss so you can imagine the scene as I just gritted my teeth and screwed up for face, laying there motionless on my back like I was dead for the next couple of hours trying to drift asleep through my pain!!

(The funny thing was that Michelle felt just as bad as I did since I had not complained, she didn't want to appear as a wuss either so didn't say anything. So fact was, us two being the idiots as we are, we both just lay there motionless on our backs like we were dead, gritting our teeth and screwing up our faces as we both tried to sleep through the pain - one on the top bunk and one of the bottom bunk thinking that the other was just in a deep happy sleep!!!!)

Now despite my pain, I finally drifted off to sleep in the early hours of the morning only to be woken up soon after by shrieking (and obviously female) drunk voices from outside. Great...just when I had fallen asleep and couldn't feel the pain of my arms. Anyways, the voices carried on shrieking for god knows how long before they finally stopped. Yay! But my happiness was shortlived as footsteps approached our door, followed by a turn of the key and click...on went our lights....it was the two Irish girls getting back. Fine, just be quick and get into bed....I thought......I heard their voices......and then....a male voice! Um, ok, so they brought back a guy to our dorm?! Um, ok....maybe I heard wrong after all, I was still only half awake. Click went off the lights. Silent. Yay sleep! Just as I closed my eyes, I heard them again...a male voice...oh and not just one, two different male voices! They had brought back a bloke each!!!! And poor Lucy who was in the single bed next to their bunks had the pleasure of listening to the couples as they started to 'discreetly' frolick in their respective bunks! (Come on, be a little considerate, there is no such thing as frolicking 'discreetly' when you are drunk! In fact, one of the girls actually went along the lines of 'oh we shouldn't, they'll hear us" to which the bloke went "never mind" - what a absolute d*ck!!!). So the next thing we heard was a slam of the door followed by another slam 5 minutes later with the lights back on and Lucy marching over to the single bed on our side of the room! (Since the beds were so close together, Lucy was worried the couples might roll over onto her bed! So she tried to go and sleep in the lounge but after a few minutes, she realised that she was too cold and so came right back!) Anyways, you would have thought that the couples would have gotten the hint with Lucy storming in and out but no, no, too drunk to realise..they quietened down for abit and we all were just slowly drifting back to sleep when the quiet giggling and talking started again. Now, no one wanted to stop the girls from having a good time. I mean, if you had such little self respect for yourself that you could take a couple of guys that you had just met back to your dorm room where you had 3 other room mates sleeping in there then hats off to you for not caring what other people thought of you ...so yeah...go ahead...do what you wanted to do....although....hmm, the word S-L-U-T comes into my head.....but come on, just alittle consideration is not too much to ask for. By now, it was almost 5am and we had to get up in a couple of hours. No one wanted to break up their party but when people don't get the hints like loud sighing or tossing and turning...then it's just a matter of time before someone's fuse would blow. So I guess, we were all just lying there in a half asleep haze our patience slowly wearing thin......then suddenly Michelle just bolted up and yelled at them "SERIOUSLY, SHUT UP OR GET OUT. SHUT UP OR GET OUT!!!!!" Wow! Michelle my hero! Guess we know now not to mess with Michelle when she's having the her beauty sleep!!!! She can be quite scary....(Michelle's friends, be afraid, be very afraid...she's not the softly spoken girl we all thought!!!) Haha!! But that did the trick! Suddenly it went quiet and we didn't hear a squeak out of them again!

Now, apparently, they didn't just piss us off with their racket....when we got back to our room that evening, a note had been placed in our room from reception saying that the girls had been moved to a different room and apologising for their behaviour. And they weren' t the only ones to apologise. The two Irish girls came knocking at our door, both their heads hanging down with shame and embarrassment as they apologised profusely for their drunken behaviour....apparently they were so drunk, one of them didn't even remember bringing her bloke back! I mean, we appreciated the apology but come on, nothing could change what we thought of them now! (And they were embarrassed..avoiding looking at us and in particular Michelle for some reason!!!)

Anyways, back to our full day glacier hiking. This was one of the things I had wanted to do in Franz Josef and although a half day and 3/4 day hike was offered, the full day hike was recommended. Being almost 750m high, the half day hike only gave you 3 hours on the glacier and meant you were pretty much stuck at the base of it seeing not that much at all. The 3/4 day hike gave you about 5-6 hours on the glacier but the full day one was 7-8 hours on the glacier taking you up almost 350m! Since Franz Josef was one of the few opportunities in the world where you can go glacier hiking, there was no way I was going to pass up on a whole day's hiking up one even if it meant...and seriously one of my worse nightmares...no toilet facilities for 7-8 whole hours!!!! It was funny, one of the first questions I asked when I booked the hike was "um, what do we do if we need to go to the toilet?". "Oh, obviously, we couldn't put bathroom facilities up on the glacier as the ice constantly moves so within a few days, the toilet would slide all the way back down so if you need to go, just let your guide know and he'll take you to an isolated part of the glacier where you can go ahead to do your business!" Nice. No drinking for me then!!!! Baring my toosh on NZ's most famous glacier was definitely not on my to do list!

So at 8:15am that morning, there we all were.......getting ready for our hike. It was like almost like a factory process....and what a bloody process it was! First, there was a queue for waterproof trousers (way to big for me, had to roll them up and still ended up with huge baggy knees!), then there was a queue for leather boots (I had to wear 4 pairs of socks!), a queue for crampons (don't laugh, those scary metal grip like things that you secure to your boots for ice walking really are called CRAMPONS!!!), a queue for a waterproof jacket (way to big for me again) and a queue for woolly hat and gloves!!!! Believe me, it's hard work when there's 40 people going through each of these queues and by the time I got all my gear on, I felt I like I'd already been on the bloody hike...being all red, hot and sweaty!!!!

I have to say, the view of the glacier is pretty amazing. I’ll let you see the photos for yourself. The 40 of us were separated into 4 groups with Group 1 being those who had previously glacier hiked or those who just considered themselves to be slightly fitter than the rest and Group 4 being those who um….may find it alittle bit of a struggle. It was funny because as soon as the guides asked us to separate into the groups, most of the men  (MEN!) assigned themselves to groups 1 and 2 with the girls being in Groups 3 & 4….haha…men….what show offs!!!! Guess what group I was in – 4!!!!  Haha…our eccentric guide Ryan then assigned me and Michelle to lead the group after saying that people who usually appear nervous and anxious were asked to go in the front. Slightly annoyed by this, I asked Ryan ‘why, do I look nervous and anxious?”. “Oh no, that’s just cos you two were lagging behind over there”…..Oh well, you would too if you had never seen a glacier before and wanted to take a gazillion pictures of it mate!!!

The hike up the glacier was a pretty incredible experience particularly in comparison with everything else that we had done so far on our trip. There was just nothing like it! Did you know that these guides come out onto the glacier in morning everyday to cut steps and paths into the ice for these hikes? And even as Ryan lead the way, he was continuously hacking with his ice pick to clear the paths or to define the steps more for us! The hike really was incredible……climbing up the ice using makeshift rope hand rails, sliding through narrow crevices, french side stepping down steep icy steps, or waddling like penguins through patches of fluffy ice shavings, squeezing thorough low arches.... It actually was quite a dangerous affair ….especially as Ryan told us that part of the ice underneath us could possibly collapse at any time…..it was just a risk…hikers had to take…(we signed a disclaimer prior to the hike)!!! Lovely!!! Lunch was also an unusual affair…..sitting halfway up a glacier, out tooshs numb on the cold wet ice, our hands shaking as we tried to swallow our home made sandwiches and chocolate bars and being surrounded by walls of ice on all sides! Haha, one of the girls had to pee as well….bet that was a new experience for her!!!

Haha and we even managed to find a fit guy on the glacier…of all the places to spot a fit guy hey?!!!! Didn’t find one in the whole of Oz and was just about to give up on NZ when this gorgeous guy appears on an ice glacier!!! Haha…couldn’t make it up even if I wanted to!!! Oh and of course he fell in love with me.....me in my oversized bright blue rain jacket, oversized baggy waterproof shiny trousers, a convict looking woolly hat, wet gloves and huge leather and what looked like biker boots with spikes on!!!!! Well, I’m sure it would have been love at first sight given the chance…….no doubt about that! Haha!!!

So Ryan, our guide was alittle eccentric to say the least. He knew a lot about everything and although he could be quite patronizing and rude, he was also highly entertaining!. I liked him because he could tell that I wasn’t Japanese…..I apparently have a chinese skull (!) and he could tell I was western and not from China because I laughed like a westerner….a hearty laugh…none of that high pitched fake girly giggle!!!! Michelle was abit annoyed though as once again she was assumed to be Thai (because she has higher eyes and is darker……she was not too impressed!). But he could also be rude without realizing…he asked one of the girls what she liked doing in her spare time so she said she liked going to the gym but hadn’t been for a while…..he said he could tell because – to which he put his hands abit above both hips!!! OUCH! How rude!!! Luckily, she didn’t seem to hear or disregarded it graciously. Had it been me, I would have hit him over the head with his own damn shovel!!!!!! And he was slightly odd too….his hobby was hitch hiking!!! But bless him….he took a shine to our Michelle and asked if she would meet him in the evening to shoot a game of pool! Michelle, being the sweetheart she is, didn’t know how to turn him down so told him that we were going for dinner. Bless him, he thought ‘we’ meant him and Michelle and told Michelle that he couldn’t go for dinner as he didn’t finish work till later than that so 9pm would be better!!!! Puh ha ha!!!! You can imagine me walking behind them and trying to suppress my uncontrollable giggling at this point!!!!

And he did turn up to meet Michelle. I know because I was dragged along by a very reluctant Michelle!!! But Michelle needn’t have worried about being stood up, the girl was on fire that night at the bar! It was almost like the show Blind Date!!

Contestant Number 1 for Michelle's attention...Murray...alittle older and more of a father figure....but a native New Zealand with a fondness for travelling, the Japanese culture and Lucy Liu.....my opinion....sleazy, crude and abit too opinionated but with some manners at least - he got us stools so we could sit at the bar...with him though!!!!

Contestant Number 2 .....Ben....the American barman at the Blue Ice Bar hailing from Pittsburgh Pensylvania....keen sportsman, Ben likes nothing better than to surf, kayak and take part in unknown (he didn't specify) expeditions in his spare time. A classic Mr Nice Guy....Ben even offered me a free slice of pizza when Michelle left me to play pool with Contestant Number 3! And just to swing the vote even more in his favour.....Mr Nice Guy gave us free tasters to some of New Zealand's finest beers...we didn't tell him that we'd already tried them all before....free drinks..you crazy!!!

And finally Contestant Number 3......our eccentric glacier guide Ryan..imagine....a cross between Matthew McConaughey and.....Goofy(!)....enough said about him already but I will tell you that the rumours about him are true....Contestant Number 2 Ben can confirm Ryan's hitch hiking hobby after picking him up from the side of the road once...and how was Ryan trying to hitch for a ride...well, Ben re enacted it by proceeding to wave his arms and body like some sort of a weird dance or seizure motion! Haha…yup, sounds like Ryan!!! However, Contestant Number 3 is responsible (he said he only came down to play pool so since the pool table at Blue Ice was busy, if Michelle didn't go and play pool somewhere else then he would go home as he couldn't drink because of early start at work the next day!!) and romantic (haha...he um, offered Michelle a place to stay for the night!...Michelle declined by the way!!!)

Haha....none of the contestants won...in case anyone was wondering....so Michelle forfeited on her prize...I had joked and told her she could bring them back to our bunks in the dorm like those girls did if she liked!!!!! To which she gave me a look that told me to "seriously shut up or get out"....haha.....

So our stay in Franz Josef was action packed and interesting to say the least!!! Haha…so much happened!!! Haha…only wished we could have stayed longer! Who knows what else would have happened!!!!