Today I woke early and got myself ready for my hike up to the glacier. After a good breakfast of muesli with mixed nuts and yoghurt, followed by toast and coffee, I packed my lunch of sandwiches a banana and a picnic bar, along with topping up the Camelpak with fresh water (thanks for that Leigh). Three of us made our way to the Glacier Guide Centre where we were equipped with waterproofs, boots and crampons.
A bus took us as far as he could by road and then we walked the two kilometres along a dried river bed to the foot of the glacier. This ran alongside a fast flowing river with icy waterfalls cascading down the mountain into it at intervals.
We then climbed up the Glacier, the first part was grey rocks and stones on top of ice. This part was the hardest for me as we climbed to over 400 metres and the views from up there were awesome. Eventually we had to fit on our crampons and walk on the ice. It was pretty amazing, I’d never done anything like this before.
As we got higher the ice took on various hues of blue and there were some deep crevices and cracks. There were some very narrow cracks to negotiate sideways on and the finale was a sort of room of ice which we had to crawl into on our stomachs but there was room to stand up inside and again it was blue with a skylight above.
The whole area was a winter wonderland!
The sun came out at the top and we took the opportunity of having our packed lunch before continuing through further adventurous icy nooks and crannies and then finally descending the way we’d come up.
There were Lotus and violets in the vegetation as we came out of the river bed….
Our feet were a little sore and we felt tired but very pleased we had done the climb but we were now ready for the Hot Pools that were including in our deal.
Ooh this was so good! The Hot Pools were set in a mini rain forest and it actually rained while we were in them so it felt very steamy with pool water temperatures ranging between 38 and 40 degrees.
This evening I had bangers and mash using a Kiwi Experience discount voucher in the Hostel Bar. It was good to catch up with previous travellers who had arrived on today’s bus during the afternoon. They wil be going up the Glacier while we move on tomorrow.
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