We headed out of Christchurch for the FINAL time, lovely place but three visits are enough on this trip. Over Arthur’s Pass towards the West coast, on the way we passed through Sheffield (Em’ from Sheffield in the UK) so we had to stop and have a look around; the look around was done by standing at the ‘Train station’ and basically ‘turning around’ on the spot. Not on the same scale as the Sheffield back in UK, no garage, only one shop and you drive ‘end to end’ in no more than 10 seconds easily. After Em’s ‘nostalgic’ stop at Sheffield NZ it was off again. It wasn’t long before we passed an area called Kura Tawhiti Conservation area, both Em’ and I are sure this area was in Lord of the Rings; and judging by the amount of cars, vans and campers parked by the side of the road we weren’t the only ones. Later we were told by a Manager of a Hostel, that both LOTR and Chronicles of Narnia were filmed here at this spot; we didn’t walk up but look at the photo’s and see what you think. Then on again through some amazing Mountain scenery, then we came across this strange structure build into the Mountain side. It’s an ‘Landslide’ protect scheme that has been made, if you look close at the photo you can see where one has come down the Mountain and over the structure into the valley floor, along side this is a ‘Waterfall’ deflection structure; in the photo you can see a car to give you an idea of the scale of this thing. On the way to Franz Josef we stopped off at the Old Church Hostel, rated at 91% in the BBH Hostel guide so we thought it would be a good night stop off; sorry to say we and BBH are wrong. A lovely location, just a shame that it has been neglected. BUT out of the 20 ish’ we’ve stayed at, it’s the first that we feel we could not recommend to anyone. In the morning it was off again to Franz Josef Glacier, and worth every effort to get back here again! It was without doubt one of the most amazing things we have ever done, we took the ¾ day hike; which takes you to the beginning of the ‘Blue Ice’. Oh how we wish we did the full day (maybe next time?) It was a 6 hour hiking day out, 3 – 3 ½ hr’s on the Glacier; but we were so overcome with the whole experience that the hiking was never an issue and only added to the day out. We walked to the Terminal face in the supplied walking socks and boots (very comfortable) and then had to walk the Glacier in the ‘Crampons’ a new experience for us, but again added to the day. As we went up the Glacier, we could clearly see the Ice getting ‘cleaner’ until we started walking through the Blue Ice crevasses; some a little too tight for my liking. Off came the rucksack, breath in as much as I could and squeeze through with Em laughing at me all the way; it was tight for her in some places as you can see from the photo. Unfortunately, we had to start heading back down the Glacier; we thought going up was fun! Heading back down was something different all together, taking our time walking along some areas; as you can see from the photos some areas were steep. Well after a full day out, back to the Hostel and into the ‘car park’ Spa; yes we headed back to the Gloworm Cottage for the second time on this trip.
If ever you get to New Zealand, we highly recommend you try to get onto a Glacier.
