Fox and Fir!
So we had decided to do a half-day hike of a glacier b/c my knee was feeling better, so yesterday after an overnight in Haast and a full bottle of oil added to George (who had been sounding odd). So Fox glacier is also where Fir began a new job two weeks ago so we met up with her before the hike which was great. it was lovely to see her again :) She is enjoying the work so far (as a chef at one of the restaurants and helping with a new menu!).
Anyways we went in to get our gear, boots, crampons and a rain jacket or pants if we needed them. While we were on the bus it began to rain, so I ran back in to get rain pants, and I am so glad I did—it wasn’t pelting, but it rained off and on for the whole walk. So we walked through the rain forest for about 1.5 hours =- pretty much up the whole way. Apparently we were told it was the equivalent of climbing a 50 story building- but it was fun, our guides were great and told us lots of cool facts about the glacier and rocks (LB the nerd would have LOVED it). We got about an hour on the ice which was sweet- the crevices that looked so small were huge when we got down beside them. using the Crampons were fun, but we got to use these poles, basically a walking stick with a metal point on the end of it to help with the our balance- mostly they were just annoying. I bestowed mine upon BFs once I realized this fact. But it was pretty cool, a nice way to spend a few hours… my knee hurt a lot once we were done- BUT we just spent the evening eating, enjoying some tea (which BF LOVeS now!)
We headed over to Fir’s house to see where she’s been living in Fox- it was a cute little house, but with no heat, so we had some hot water and enjoyed catching up :) She is enjoying her time here and I’m glad we got to see her before we leave NZ.
Today we are in Greymouth at Global Village- a very quality hostel before heading up the rest of the west coast- back over to Blenheim then down to Kaikoura where we hope to sell our lovely George and finish our food before flying back to Van city… weird. Glacier pictures are below!
