DAY 18: I Hate You Franz Josef

From NZ - DAY 18

GREYSMOUTH – Today I went for a glacier walk on the Franz Josef Glacier.

It was quite possibly one of the worst decisions I have ever made.

It was like torture. I don't mind hiking, and even enjoy it, but feeling like you could fall down at any moment and die or break a leg for five hours is just not fun.

The trek started at 1 p.m. and ended at 6 p.m.

The first leg was through the bush, up and over a hill, that I would say is close to the height of Cascade Mountain outside Portage – except much steeper.

So first I wrecked my leg muscles by climbing up and then going down with wobbly legs was disturbing. I was basically hanging by a rope on this muddy, slick and wet track for about an hour and a half. It took another hour to get to get to the glacier weaving through a rocky river bed.

So yeah it took 2.5 hours to get to the damn glacier. So I was on the glacier for about an hour and it was completely not fun. It was all climbing ice stairs feelings like you are going to fall and die. Going down was worse.

I was so tired by the time I got to the bottom of the glacier I could not comprehend doing another 2.5 hours of rough climbing and walking.

At this point the only good think I can say about this experience is that I did not have a heart attack – if I had been at all on the verge of one, this would have been the time.

Being on the glacier was quite lame as well. So the entire walk back to the bus was me thinking... this was horrible. Why did I do this?

Normally this whole thing would have been fine, but the bush walk, climb, was the killer. This was only added because the river decided it wanted to flow over the normal track.

The people's little guide said Medium (or level 2 of 4) in difficulty. No frickin' way. There were a lot of people who had a very difficult time. It was not just my overweight self.

I left town immediately after the trek and drove to Greysmouth, which is about 2 hours away.

I hired a motel room for the night so I can really unwind. I had a go in the whirlpool. In the states I could not afford a place like this, but the greenback's strength against the NZ dollar is helping me out significantly.

It is about $1US = $1.82NZ.