our friends fox and franz

so the days have gotten a bit confusing... it was maybe 5 days ago-ish that we left queenstown and headed to the "wild" west coast of the island. our first stop was the tiny town of fox glacier. our hostel was a nice step up from bungi backpackers... including such amenities as a bedside table, sinks with the toilets, and sheet that didn't make us itch inexplicably. we were happy. we spent an afternoon getting settled in and exploring the one street town. the next day we booked a half day glacier trek. they outfitted us with boots, cramp-ons, rain coats, and pokey walking sticks for the ice (regina was particularly fond of these, she may start carrying a big stick with her all the time). we started off hiking up the valley wall up ~650 steps so that we could reach a stable area of the glacier. the terminal face, as the front is called, is quite dangerous. during our hike we heard/saw two really big pieces of ice fall off and two australian tourists were crushed a couple weeks ago when they ignored signs and went past the barriers. we were good tourists and stuck with our guides. they taught us lots of interesting stuff about glaciers, like....

-the glaciers on the west coast of new zealand are some of the only glaciers in the world that are advancing rather than retreating. (we could explain why this is but it would take a while... and we want to go get ice cream)
-fox glacier is moving at a rate of up to 8 meters in 20 days. this is apparently quite impressive for a glacier. it sounded like a lot to us too.

it was really pretty cool being on the ice. our guides had to chip steps into the ice to make steps for us... something they have to do every day because of melt. they let us carry the pick axes too... made us feel like arctic explorers or something. and we have some cool photos to prove it. we're still working on those photos by the way. some may be up without captions today.

after fox we headed about 35 kilometers up the coast to franz josef glacier. a slightly bigger town... this one had at lease 4 side roads off the one main road. however the address where we were to catch our bus upon leaving was listed as "bus stop, main road." quite helpful, but we found it.

in franz we stayed at a yha (youth hostel accommodation) which really turned out to be lovely. we met some nice people who gave us lots of tips on australia... seems as though everyone else started there and then came to n.z. we decided not to pay for another glacier trek and thought we'd just do a bit of tramping on our own. we found a map and got a recommendation of a trail from the kid at the reception desk. and then headed out into the rain forest. the trail was well maintained and marked... at least for most of the way. sometimes we were just wandering through a river bed, scrambling over rocks till we saw the next orange triangle. we got to see some frolicking red deer and some pretty scenery. and then we got to a really big glacier. we didn't venture too close... kinda figured you've seen one glacier, you've seen 'em all, right? and we were kinda tired. so we hitched back to town with a 39 year old american trust fund baby. apparently if your grandfather invents corn syrup, you don't ever have to work. must be nice...

this morning we had been planning on waking up at 5:30 to watch the inauguration but 5:30 came awfully early. we caught our bus on the bus stop, main road, to greymouth. tomorrow we'll take the alpine train back to christchurch, our favorite city so far. and then it will be off to sydney. hooray!

here's the link for the photos... http://groups.msn.com/2girlsandnewzealand/shoebox.msnw?Page=1
our apologies if it doesn't work or if the photos get repetitive etc. we'll try to get them labeled sometime soon.