franz

OK, yes, so I am sitting at an internet cafe, blogging about Franz Joseph and the like, and I decided to make it into multiple posts. I fear people will get bored if I have things in one big post, or that I won't be able to fully remember everything if I put it all into one? I don't know. My days need to all be separate posts, apparently.

But we are still in Franz, until tomorrow when we take a long bus ride south to Queenstown, where you can to everything stupid and adrenaline-y ever. But for now, we were not feeling adrenaline-y, or rich, so we did not do any of the heli-skydive-trekking-packages that are everywhere in this town. Instead, Susan and I decided to get to the glacier on our own steam, so we walked all the way there from town. It made for a tiring morning, but how often can you say that you woke up, talked out the door, and walked over to a glacier? Cause we did.
Franz is dirtier than the glaciers in Patagonia, and the body of water it ends in is much, much smaller, so the terminal face is not nearly as much of a sheer drop as the others were. The river it ends in is deceptive, though, apparently - it's small, but it is very unpredictable, so lately one of the paths that gets closest to it is closed because of falling ice and flooding, and there is another path that has been reclaimed by the river on the other side. Apparently, the river will just change course and take over things without warning.

We said pish posh, though, and crossed the little stream to get to the path anyway, and got pretty close to the face. I have seen a couple now, but glaciers are no less breathtaking at this point; they really are extraordinary. And we were never menaced by the river, but it was awesome to walk right up under the waterfalls pouring from the mountains, see that the big boulders in the river were, in fact, blocks of ice off the glacier, and see all the places where the river has gone at one point or another. We even went for another easy stroll at the end, because it was supposed to lead to some good views. It did:

The hikes were easy enough, they just meant for about 7 miles of walking before lunch, so we are beat. We are going to wander about town a little bit, and that my be it. Besides, it's time to repack (again) in time for tomorrow's departure. I like Franz, and it is certainly the most similar to my time in Patagonia, with both scenery and remoteness, but far easier. Not just the English, but the high-speed internet, the fully staffed i-site information centers, the easy, well-marked hikes.

(I even got to watch a bit of the Oscars last night. Really? Was No Country that good? I didn't even want to see it. Normally, I throw Oscar parties and organize betting pools, but being out of the country for the nominations, campaigning and now the awards, and I am terminally out of it; of the big 6 categories, I have seen...There Will Be Blood.)

So we are remote, but not too. And I still love New Zealand.