Greymouth to Franz Josef

After dinner and after Laura had got out of the lift on the wrong floor with a different bloke (completely lost!) our night's sleep was interrupted at 2am by a downpour so much more torrential than our drive squall that its deep and echoing thunderclaps that, thanks to the lack of wind, refused to go away.

The first white peaks came into view, peeking out from between the low-slung clouds at the top of Ka Tiritiri O Te Maona and then the glacier at Franz Josef which can be seen from the road, a dirty white, blue and grey looking foot of ice.

Our Glacier Guide, Troy, led us up onto the ice, first via a mud and rock scramble to get around the Fox River which streams out from a cave beneath the glacier. Up and over the rocks we went up and down ladders using stepping stones and trees for support.

On the other side of our scramble lay the glacier, extending up and back between the mountains for roughly 20kms, where it unfolds into a gigantic bowl. Troy tolds us its like a saucepan with the section before us, the part we will play on, being the handle.

And after we tied on our crampons we struggled up and onto the glacier itself, witnessing (and more importantly hearing) the shearing of the glacier's front sections - one from the roof of the giant cave which hurled ice out on the river. Troy told us sheering was good as it meant the glacier is growing and moving forward. They apparently have 50 metres of snow on top of the glacier every year.

Though the peak was covered in cloud throughout much of the climb we had amazing views across the ice field and back down the valley. Ice of varying strengths and thickness surrounded us. White, transparent and menthol blue. Water moves on, in and through the ice, creating gulleys and filling crevasses.

To be classed as a glacier, Troy said, the ice must be moving and have at least 2 crevasses and we saw many smaller holes, some only two feet deep, others disappearing into the blue green below. Rivers of pure, very cold water flowed into some, creating ice waterfalls and Troy led us through the tight confines of one crevice that reached high above us. We had to sidle one after another, our bags dragged behind and our feet digging in like egyptians, back behind front, for a hundred metres, the floor falling away from us and the cold, tight walls pushing in.

After a late lunch on the glacier we came back down, a far easier feat. It began to rain again but by then our feet were too sore, our knees beginning to rattle, to care. Where's the shower?

Funnily enough, Troy could tell that we were English as soon as we produced our lunch 'Ah the English love their crisps!!'. And Laura's dinner of soup and chips got more than an odd look from our waiter!