Alex's travel blog

Christchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand fact: New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote, in 1893.

Next morning the Stray bus set off for Franz Joseph, a small, touristy village near Franz Joseph glacier. On the way we stopped at a river to do a bit of gold-panning. It was fun, but if we hadn't been gold panning it would have been one of the most unplesant ways to spend a holiday I can imagine. Firstly, we had to take our shoes off and stand in the river, which was ice-cold. Worse than that were the sandflies. I thought I'd got pretty hardcore from my time in the rainforest, but obviously not. No amount of wafting or swatting could make them leave me alone. If I ignored them for a few seconds, I would find large swarms settled on my legs. The bites were very sharp and some drew blood. I then had to suffer the indignity of everyone staring at my face and saying "oh my god you've been bit really bad...that looks painful". About 12 of us all panned down to just the fine grain at the bottom. We then tipped them all together and the expert man finished it off. Eventually the gold was revealed at the bottom of the pan: a few virtually microscopic crumbs. Gold is cool and everything, but to be honest I didn't think it was worth the effort.

At Franz Joseph in the evening there was a big kareoke party in one of the bars. For me, the evening didn't get going for a while...then it got really fun. First, this crazy American/German girl called Jill persuaded me to sing kareoke with her: I think she'd chosen "You sexy thing" by Hot Chocolate. So we put our names in for that. Soon after, I heard my name being announced...but it wasn't for the kareoke. I'd been selected to take part in the Easter Egg Eating Competition! Ah, come to think of it, that means I can work out the date...it must have been Easter Day! I'd put my name into the pot earlier just for the sake of it, not at all expecting to be chosen. The competition involved eating 2 cookie things, 2 Forero Roche, then downing a pint. Becuase of that last bit, I knew I had no chance of winning...but I was put to shame by the victor: he'd stuffed all the chocolates into his face while I was just starting my second. I was grateful for the free chocolate and drink, though. Soon after we performed the kareoke. When you're voice is amplified and set to music, you suddenly hear how out of tune your singing is. Later, I was getting quite into it and really wanted to sing "Macarena", so persuaded Jill to do that with me. It was a good test of my fast reading Spanish skills, and I failed miserably.

The next day I walked along the glacial valley right up to the glacier's face. That was great. I'd seen a few pictures of glaciers, but seeing one in real life was a totally different experience. The whole valley was a spectacular and humbling setting: the whole scene was like a testament to the power of water. It was tipping down with rain, plus there was the glacier, the channels of water criss-crossing the valley floor, and the waterfalls tumbling off the cliffs all around.

Back at my hostel I overheard some people asking for a room at the reception. But because there were so many backpacker tour buses in the village, there were literally no hostel beds left anywhere. They were told to try the motels, which were much more expensive. I felt sorry for them - I generally didn't consider the possibility of no beds being available, so didn't phone ahead to make reservations.

The Stray bus set off that afternoon. After travelling independantly for so long in South America, I had got a bit fed up of being herded around and doing everything Stray told me to do. So I tried to be different. Most people had done a hike on the Franz Joseph glacier that morning. I decided against this. Instead, I would get off the bus at the next village, called Fox Glacier, and do a hike on the glacier there, called Fox Glacier. However, my plan backfired. The bus driver told me that all the backpacker accomodation in Fox was booked up, just like at Franz Jospeh. This was a setback. I hastily phoned and managed to book a room at a really expensive motel.

This place was a sort of campsite with a few cabins. It cost me $55 as opposed to the $20 which I had normally been paying. But it was so much worse than backpacker hostels! There was no plates or cutlery or anything in the kitchen, so I had to hire a set for $5. Luckily, I walked into town and managed to book myself a proper hostel for the next night. That night, after so many nights in crowded dorms, being on my own in a quiet room was weird, but quite nice.

I had the next day free because the glacier hike was fully booked, so I booked for the day after. For the rest of that day...guess what...I walked up to the face of Fox glacier. This was really cool, but not as exciting as yesterday. Seeing glacier faces was now old-hat to me.

For the glacier hike I had about 5 hours on the ice. I didn't really like the group I was in. It was mainly a group of American friends. The laughed very loudly and for an unnecessary amount of time at the smallest thing. The glacier was amazing, though. It's such a weird landscape. It's all hills, valleys, jagged peaks and deep crevasses. The there a few holes to climb through and lots of pools of water. The structure of the ice beneath my feet must have been so complicated, and I'm not sure how the guide knew it was safe to walk on. Occasionally you'd see streams of water, which meandered in odd paths across the ice before plunging down holes. It was a surprising amount of fun to throw big rocks down the holes - you heard them echoing for a long time before the splash. Apparantly, it's one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world: I may have read 3 metres per day. But I didn't feel any lurching while I was up there, which was a bit disappointing.

The next morning I impressed myself by getting up before sunrise to walk to Lake Matheson. This lake is one of the most photographed places in New Zealand - the idea is to capture the mountains reflected in the lake. The lake is incredibly, incredibly still. I don't know if this is because of the trees and hills around it, or what. It was so still that I actually moved around the lake to get away from the ducks: their paddling was creating an unacceptable amount of rippling. The clouds cleared for long enough for me to get my photo, which is below. Of course, a photo can never do a place justice, but I decided this was the most beautiful place I'd ever been in.

I didn't have time to walk back before I needed to check out of my hostel, so I had my first go at hitchhiking. (It was, like, a 5 minute drive!) For the first couple of cars I was too scared and let them go past. For the next two I put my thumb up, but they whizzed straight past. This is why I had been apprehansive: the feeling of embarrassment and rejection was terrible. The third car picked me up. It really was much easier than I'd expected.