Franz Josef: Summer Arrives

January 2014

The start of the new year meant that we were well into the main tourist season in New Zealand. There was a brief lull of backpackers over Christmas but now they were flocking in herded by 7 Kiwi Experience and 6 stray buses a week each with over 60 people on and as they all stay for two nights it was a lot of people! That was on top of 100 Contiki passengers arriving twice a week and all the other random tour groups. Yep, we were well in to it now.

I had a new favourite backpacker competition, Frozen T-Shirt which involved 4 or 5 people attempting to put on a t-shirt that was frozen! This was the first time we did it and we had a whole bunch of Americans in and you can tell by Tonys reaction at the end of this video just how ridiculous we thought they were, chanting 'USA'. Bloody americans!

The year started with yet more rain. There was a couple of days of torrential rain which made the river swell a hell of a lot. I went to check it out before work one day and saw the only thing protecting the town from flooding was a huge row of rocks.

It was a tad wet

Raging

When I went to work I found the delivery waiting for me to put it away. It wasn't covered properly so all the boxes were wet and when I stacked them as I normally do this happened.....

Heineken avalanche

Yeah, not good!

Tui being flattering

The weather did improve though as you can see from Tui sunbathing in an interesting way! This was just in time for the arrival of the mother ship!

'Look Al its a glacier' - noooo!

Mum had decided to take 6 months off work to travel around New Zealand and Australia. I think she saw how much fun I was having and decided she wanted a piece of it! After spending a couple of days in Christchurch she came to visit me. It was really nice to see her after over a year away from home.

Okarito Beach

I took her to see as many of the local spots as I could. We spent one afternoon trekking up to the glacier and another at Okarito Beach. I'd never been down there before and its beautiful. Massive cliffs rolling straight into the sea. We spotted a seal at the beach but he swam away before I could get a picture.

Cliffidge

We also went kayaking. I had lots of fun seeing as Mum was terrified of rolling over! I didn't warn her about the pepper leaf either. I just sat back and watch everyone pull faces and spit them out!

Kayak adventure!

I'm doing all the work!

Rebel

Awkward selfie!

Mum stayed for a week and then jumped on the Kiwi bus! Yep, the one with all the kids on. I think she enjoyed it overall.

It was weird saying bye knowing she was going off doing a load of cool stuff while stayed where I was and worked. It was like our roles had reversed! I don't think she realised that travelling by yourself isn't always easy but when she realised that being homesick is perfectly normal she enjoyed it. Least I think so. I hope so.

ITS NOT HARD!

I lost my rag one day and stuck this sign on my head because I was fed up of reminding ignorant backpackers of their manners!

Snows nearly all gone

On one particularly fine day I decided to explore Roberts Point. This is on the other side of the valley to Alex Knob and has been closed for ages because of a massive flood damage done to the track last winter. I was told it was still do-able as long as you were careful so off I went!

The bridge at the start of the track

Heading up the valley

Danger!!!

So ignoring the danger sign I went on ahead. It really wasn't as bad as it was made out. Sure the stairs were all wonky but they were stable. The the bridge that said maximum one person scared me a little. How weak must a bridge be if it can only carry one person at a time!

Wonky stairs

1 man bridge

Crossing the rivers were a bit tricky because of all the lose rocks but that was it. The track was largely ok. In fact the worst bit of the track was the mold growing on all the rocks on the path because it wasn't getting used!

River crossing

Big fan of this photo!

stairs bottled into a cliff

rock side

At the end of the track it opens up so that you can see the glacier. There's a wooden platform with a picnic table on so I sat there for a bit with my picnic (a bad of chrips) and trundled back down the path.

view from the top

Going down on the slippy rocks was harder than coming up and I completely stacked it at one point! I wasn't hurt but the awkward walking kept giving me really bad cramp on both my inner thighs. At one point I was just sat on the floor waiting for the cramp to ease!It was worth the walk but I still prefer Alex Knob.

The AJ Hackett crew came to the bar again and this time it was Gavin and Tonys turn to demonstate to everyone how it was done. It was a really good night with us having a late lock in at the end of the night.

gearing up

The next day was a real crap day and I realised that I really needed a break and it just so happened that Oscar had arranged for me and Gavin to go to Queenstown the following morning for the weekend.

What an absolutely epic weekend it was too!!....