Adventureland: Queenstown to Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

 New Zealand, by and large, is an odd country. There are more sheep here than people, but lamb chops are incredibly expensive. The countryside is filled with birds but a huge portion of them can't fly. The landscape is tranquil and serene and yet Kiwis are adrenaline junkies. In fact, there are few natural features of this idyllic country that thrill-hungry natives haven't tried to parachute onto, jet boat through, or bungee off of. The all-out sensory assault can seem a bit overwhelming at times. But if you have a few dollars in your pocket, a thirst for adventure, and an inexhaustible supply of clean underwear this just might be your little slice of heaven.

Our first introduction to all things extreme came in the southern city of Queenstown. From a distance Queenstown, perched on the northern shore of New Zealand's longest lake, seems like a quiet little resort town. Quiet, that is, until you see the legions of people throwing themselves out of airplanes from 10,000 feet up. We pulled our little campervan into town under a rainbow of graceful parachutes that danced in the mountain air currents like falling cherry blossoms.

Downtown Queenstown is home to a beautiful botanic garden that occupies a peninsula jutting out into the blue waters of Lake Wakatipu. Massive Douglas Firs, giant sequoias, and eucalyptus trees tower hundreds of feet above elegant rose gardens, fountains and stone bridges. The garden also home to the world’s first Frisbee golf course, so even a leisurely afternoon stroll through the gardens is not without peril of being brained by errant hippy-hurled flying discs. "Whoa... sorry bra."

We spent the night just outside of Queenstown at a beautiful place called Moke Lake. While driving in we were stopped by a production assistant from a film crew. He said we needed to wait because some movie scenes were being shot. I almost freaked out thinking that it was “The Hobbit.” I was already imagining myself as an extra in a bad wig and a pair of oversized hobbit feet when the PA shattered my Halfling dreams. It turns out that it was some claptrap starring Oscar winner Holly Hunter and TV's Lucy Lawless (Xena!!!). What a letdown. Oh well. At least the lake was nice.

Taking highway 6 out of Queenstown, you drive over a few gorges where there are other activities to get your heart racing. At Aurthur's Point you can either jump off a bridge with a bungee cord or you can jump off the bridge attached to a 200-foot-long wire that allows you to swing over the canyon like Superman. (Second jump is free if you agree to go naked!) In the gorge below, jet boats whip through the narrow channel at breakneck speeds while screaming passengers pray that the wet feeling in their trousers is only river water.

Farther north we came to the village of Arrowtown. Turns out incontinent tourists aren’t the only things turning the rivers of western New Zealand golden. There is also gold! During the rush of the 1860s, adventurers poured in from across the Southern Alps in search of their fortunes. The goldfields in this area were home to some heartbreak but they were also home to some monster nuggets. We tried our hands at panning for some of that sweet, sweet dough re mi, but, alas, the only gold we found was at the museum.

After Arrowtown, our thoughts turned from gold to blue…blue ice that is. We set our sights on the crown jewel of New Zealand glaciers, Franz Josef. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. When we got to the glacier it was raining. The rain was not all that surprising considering it had rained for about 20 out of the 30 days that we were in New Zealand. What was surprising was that high winds and intense fog that caused the guide company to cancel our hike. We slunk out of Franz Josef village searching for sunshine.

We drove north along the west coast highway. The road is one of the most beautiful stretches of pavement in the world, combining the jagged coastline and sweeping vistas of California’s Highway 1, the tall cliffs dropping into the sea of Italy’s Amalfi coast and the temperate rainforests and rushing waterfalls that are pure New Zealand. On the way, we passed the famous pancake rocks of Punakaiki. These are limestone formations that were thrust up out of the sea millions of years ago. Since then wind, water, and time have carved delicate shapes that geologist are still struggling to explain.

We finally caught up with Apollo on a small beach in Karamea. The sun broke through clouds like a diamond butterfly emerging from its cocoon, spreading it’s gold, orange, and red wings across the late afternoon sky. Molly and I felt a sense of mild elation as we walked along the beach looking at the strange drift wood formations left by earlier travelers.

The sunlight turned out to be short lived. The next day the rain returned so we headed to a place where the weather made no difference---underground. This part of New Zealand is honeycombed with limestone caves carved by slightly acidic rainwater. We spent a few hours picking through dark caverns looking for blind cave spiders and their weta prey.

Finally, after a seemingly biblical amount of rain had soaked us for weeks, we had had enough. We thought, “This is Adventureland, dammit, and we were going to have an adventure.” We decided we would climb Franz Josef glacier come hell or (more likely) high water. We drove south through a deluge of rain and camped just outside of town preparing for a very cold and very wet hike on the glacier. We awoke the next morning to a sight that was so strange that Molly didn’t believe me when I told her… IT WAS BLUE SKY! The day we hiked Franz Josef was amazing. Crystal clear blue skies and warm sunshine covered the land. For the first time we got to see the majestic snow-capped mountains and green hills that make this part of the world so spectacular.

A Kea, the worlds only alpine parrot greeted us at the glacier

Our hike began on a two-mile-long gravel and rock plain. This plain was covered with 100 meters of ice less than a century ago, but like almost all glaciers around the world, Franz Josef has been melting at a rapid pace. Thirty to forty centimeters of ice melt off the top of the glacier every day, contributing to its rapidly changing appearance.

After a half hour of hiking we scrambled up the terminal moraine, strapped on our crampons and got out onto the ice. Being out on the ice was like being in a different world. Our guide, Mike, lead us through a maze of deep crevasses and towers of ice called seracs. He used a huge ice axe to carve steps into the glacial walls to help us scramble over the broken ground. We made our way through eerie blue ice caves and drank water that had last been in liquid form over one hundred years ago.

The ice of a glacier is blue for the same reason that the sky or the water in a swimming pool is blue--- refraction. Most snow and ice appear white because they have little air bubbles inside of them that reflect light back at your eye. Glacial ice on the other hand has been so compacted that most of those bubbles have been squeezed out, leaving a very clear medium for light to move through so light doesn't reflect, it refracts. Anyone who has ever seen the cover of Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side of the Moon knows that when light moves from one medium to another it bends. Different wavelengths (colors of light) bend different amounts. Red light bends the least and blue light bends the most. So when light moves from the air into the ice the blue wavelengths are  bent back into your eye.

After six hours of climbing we reached the main ice fall of Franz Josef. All around us the ice would crack and melt into amazing shapes some of which resembled Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

On our way back down we were reminded of just how dangerous it is to go for a walk on an ever-shifting river of ice. A small cave that we walked by only hours earlier had collapsed just a few hundred yards away from the trail, sending a thunderous shockwave through the valley. Hundreds of tons of ice crashed down and formed an enormous cavern was big enough to fit a football field inside. But all’s well that ends well. Nobody ended up at the bottom of a crevasse or was crushed by falling ice. The group safely descended the rest of the glacier and headed back to town. Molly and I were grateful that we made it back down in one piece and after a relaxing soak in some glacial hot springs, we got in our van and headed back towards Christchurch. As we neared the airport we felt the familiar tinge of excitement shiver down our spines and we decided that we were quite ready for our next adventure.