After our return journey from Christchurch on the TranzAlpine scenic train, we continued our path down the west coast from Greymouth down to the small township of Franz Josef. It’s a very small place that revolves around the tourism that the Franz Josef Glacier brings to the area.
Unfortunately, it rained for what seemed the entirety of our two night stay, but we managed to fit in the easy 1.5 hour return walk to the base of the glacier. You can access the glacier itself for guided walks via helicopter, but these options are all very expensive. Having recently spent fortunes on jumping out of planes and even flying them, we decided to settle for views of the glacier rather than the experience of actually walking on it.
The walk to the base of the glacier is a pretty damn good one though, in my opinion. It crosses a rocky open river bed which sits between monstrous hills covered in rainforest, with countless little waterfalls trickling down the sides in all directions. It was a very impressive scene.
The closest we could get to the actual glacier was 300 metres. It was interesting to read that the point at which we walked up to is actually where the glacier extended to just a few years ago, before it began to retreat pretty rapidly.
Our view wasn’t brilliant as the tops of the glacier and surrounding hills disappeared within a rainy mist. Nevertheless, it was pretty awesome to see a glacier like this for the first time and the whole scene was pretty spectacular to be fair.
It was here that we were struck by the variety offered by New Zealand. It’s unbelievable to think that a week ago we were chilling on golden beaches next to turquoise waters in Abel Tasman, and now we’re surrounded by snow topped alps and staring at glaciers! Just amazing.
Anyway, it’s time to continue our journey down state highway 6 to our next destination; Wanaka.