Glacial Misgivings

We tried to visit Franz Joseph Glacier yesterday. Well we tried, but thought better of it as neither of us had a coat and it was raining buckets. So we quickly switched to plan B which was to to visit Fox Glacier instad. Well as you can imagine I was very excited. I’ve never really understood the draw of glaciers, but with global warming and their imminent deimise I am now strangely attracted to them, like a chav to shell suits and Greggs the bakers.

Anyway, we’re staying in Franz Joseph so we had to drive for half an hour to get Fox Glacier. It should really go without saying that we’re in the mountains now, as glaciers are rarely found on beaches or in cities. So half an hour later after winding through mountain passes with Jane clinging onto her seat with every turn, we pull up in the car park and see the enormity and grandieur of the mountains up close an personal. It was cloudy here, but the rain hadn’t managed to break through as yet.

The sign at the bottom of the steps read “Observation platform - one hour return”, so off we trotted hoping that we would get there and back before the rain came. Up and over the first set of steps and the landscape changed drastically. It looked much as I imagined the surface of the moon might. An almost white, flat bottomed valley with bright blue scattered pools of water. Streams running down the surrounding cliffs and from the head of the valley where the glacier itself must be, a raging torrent of melting ice. It woud really be quite an eerie scene if it were not for the snakes of Japanese tourists, snapping away in their own inimitable fashion at rocks and each other. Did I mention I found one taking a picture of a poster in the aiport when we landed. What was he going to do with it? Photoshop the text out and claim it as one of hs own? Seriously!

So we plodded onwards and upwards over the undulating, rocky paths. You could feel it getting colder as you neared the tongue. That’s the bit at the end of the clacier that can be seen from below. Every day’s a school day. Over a couple of little streams, taking care not to lose Jane - she has the coordination of a dizzy toddler on acid – and around the final bend to reveal what we had both been eagerly anticipating.

Well what a bloody nerve. How very dare they. Fox Glacier? The sheer cheek of it. We’d driven and walked all that way, with massive expectations, to see a great white polar bear on a massive block of ice, just like in the adverts and what do we get? A big dirty blue ice cube. I’m going to call trade descriptions. I mean Fox, Glacier? The only word that’s missing is mint. It’s just not good enough.

It was with heavy hearts we travelled back to our accommodation. I wasn’t sure anything would be able to quell the disappointment. Well perhaps a politition being assasinated or fat bloke falling over and not being able to get back up. One thing that allways cheers me up is goats on a trampoline, but what’s the likelyhood of any of those happening? Well imagine my surprise. “You’ve got to be kidding” I thought.