Into the Rabit Hole

Well, I just had one of the more amazing expierences in my life so far, by far one of the best parts of the trip too. I went climbing on a glacier two days ago, it was just stunning. Franz Josef, while being a tourist attraction is totally worth it, espcially when you have a good group of people to do it with. We climbed aroudn for about 9 hours, mostly in light weight sweaters and shorts, the sun was quite hot. The picture above is of me climbing down into a tunnle, taken by a friend, it was wet, hence the full rain gear, but worth the cold. The glacier, deceptive in size, seemed small when we first approach it in the morning, but what looked like a ten minute walk to its base turn into 45 minutes. Ice is cold, no doubt about it, but when you get moving, in the sun, you get toasty quite quickly, stopping for lunch only briefly so we wouldn't freeze, we continued along catching up to several other groups.

I could go on all day about the trip, but I have to move on, I only have so much time on the internet. Yesterday we arrived in Wanaka, a ski town, about 4000 normal residences and expierenced our first taste of winter, snow on the mountain tops surround the village. It really reminds me of BC, Vernon, but shunk in the wash. Fantastic community, and a great group of people, I went for a walk this morning and relaxed through the afternoon.

Well, good bye and good night!!! I will update you soon as to what is happening soon, I am almost all the way south and then I have to start trekking north to Auckland to head home.