Part of the walk into where the glacier terminates, originally this area was under ice back in the early 1800's. The glacier advances and retreats over a 10 year span so it is quite a quick mover. Currently it is retreating but as this phase started in 2008. Push moraines (piles of rock formed at the face when the glacier is growing) were clearly visible and made up of some pretty big boulders.

Guide Dave and yours truly in one of the ice holes - thankfully look nothing like Rolf. I was cold and he was hot after cutting steps down into the ice hole. View of Fox glacier looking up towards the mountains. There are two people in the photo who were a party of ice climbers. They can be seen as a dark blob one third down and in the centre. Distances are deceiving as is the contours.

Part of the 'team' looking at another ice hole. The second guide, Andy is taking the photos for us.

Beautiful blue colours in the ice hole

Close to the end of the glacier, the ice splits and cracks as it melts and is subjected to the forces of the glacier behind. In 2 weeks time this view will have changed, even with the temperature around 2 or 3 degrees the ice was melting and bits dropping off into the river constantly. The ice is covered by dust, pebbles and pieces of rock from the sides of the valley. Whilst the mountains are growing due to plate tetonics - the Australian plate is pushing against the Pacific plate pushing this plate upwards and forming the southern Alps; the amount of erosion of these mountains is almost equal as the rock is made up of Schist and is quite soft. Quite a number of large rock slides evident and which the guides were concerned with, especially those we had to walk close to.

27th June 2010

Early shoot for me, out by 6am and a 2 hour drive. temperature hovered from 6 degrees in Hokitika to zero as I crossed the ridge between Fran Joseph and Fox glacier villages. Worth it though as we spent the whole day up on the ice. Firstly though it was safety talk and kitting out for the team - 2 guides and 5 visitors. All I needed was the crampons as I had all my walking gear on including the merino wool scarf. Not something I wear in the UK but it was cosy and warm, especially out on the glacier.

After a short drive we then had a 20 minute walk to the face of the glacier. Dave was good in that he had plenty of knowledge about the way the glacier acted and pointed out many facts. One that I found fascinating is that whilst the main bulk of the glacier melts and retreats - the part you can see, underneath the valley floor is more ice that has not melted, but is much more slowly eroded by the melt water. Often sink holes appear which are filled by the melt water. Due to gases escaping from the melting underground ice the small ponds appear to "boil/bubble" and are called kettle holes.

Once we had climbed up to the side of the glacier it was time to put on the crampons. Given a rudimentary guide as to how to walk, and away we went. The first part was easy as we followed the route that the half day tour takes. This effectively takes you up onto the glacier, via a good number of steps cut into the ice to a safe point that the visitors can stand and take photos. The half day visitor is given a pair of half size crampons that fit under the mid part of the boot, whilst we had full size crampons with 10 wicked spikes.

Once past the half day visitor point we struck off across the glacier on virgin ice and made our way to the far side for lunch. At each crevasse the guides either cut new steps for us to descend/ascend or cleaned up previous steps. In the summer due to the rate of melt they cut new steps every other day. At first they were proper steps but as the day wore on they were more ledges just to assist us. I found the idea of walking on ice reasonably easy once we were shown how to do it. The ice holes we visited were fabulous and quite deep, all having a sink hole for the water to drain into. We climbed pretty far up the glacier, but it takes time to work your way in and out of the crevasses and undulations. Our way was blocked by a wall of very broken and jagged ice which has been formed by the glacier "tumbling" over a hard rock ledge. The way the guide described it was by taking a mars bar and bending it into two. The top surface cracks and crazes whilst the under layer remains fluid.

The day passed all too quickly and soon we were on our way back to the bus. A superb day, beautiful weather although the sun does not penetrate the valley during the winter months. One of the phenomena was to look back down the glacier from our top position and see 'heat' waves shimmering above the ice. I am not sure how heat waves are caused, but it was explained that the same process occurs over ice in this canyon causing the air to shimmer. Not sure if this happens elsewhere over glaciers/snow fields.

I was disapointed that this glacier does not 'groan' and make noises as it moves, but was told that if you took the helicopter to the top half of the glacier and did the ski trip you can hear the glacier as it moves.

In the summer they do a 3 or 4 day trip up the glacier to one of the huts, stay over and expore the upper part. I believe that there are 12 glaciers that come off the the central basin, the Fox and Frans Joseph being two of them.

Rather tired by the time I got back to the hostel, a long day. Spoke to mum and dad as it was a Sunday as well as Shannon. She is not happy as the lodgings do not have internet access, not like Kerikeri at all :-(

That's all for now, in Wanaka and due to the ski season the hostels are full. Have had to take the last bed here - top bunk in a dorm - this evening will be interesting!!