Glaciers!

February 4

It turns out that NZ$30 doesn't buy you the warmest of sleeping bags. I woke up last night to a very bright moon, hard ground on semi-burned shoulders, and cold extremities. I solved the first problem by pulling the bag entirely over my head and somewhat solved last by promoting my towel from sleeping pad to blanket, but got only the lightest of sleep before the other guys started tossing and turning and slowly rising from their (much better) slumbers. The area around our tarp was again swarmed with sand flies (or mosquitoes?), prompting us to leave it as quickly as possible. We dragged everything, including the fully-assembled tent, back to the car for packing.

We opted not to go with the now-familiar option of oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar for breakfast, partly due to a reluctance to use up our water, but mostly because our move to the car had not much improved the bug situation. Instead, we drove a few kilometers back to Arthur's Pass and found a cafe with (somewhat pricey) breakfast (but at least it's breakfast, right? They had to have that stuff hauled up a mountain). Stomachs satisfied, we headed off in the direction of the Franz Josef Glacier.

When we got out of the car, we were more skeptical than anticipatory. The idea that anything could be frozen within 200 km of this sunny, dusty parking lot seemed silly -- almost as silly as the sign we saw warning us to "lock your boot!" lest car thieves come. We deduced from this sign that "boot" is the word for "trunk" around these parts, though we haven't really accepted this fact yet.

This probably calls for a digression. Though they speak English in New Zealand, Kiwis have a lot of unique words for things that can make you do a double take on seeing them. I had been warned of this before I got here, but there were so many I really didn't remember them all and am having to relearn as I go. Some of the ones we've encountered are:

"trunk" = "boot"
"cooler" (as in the plastic thing you put soda in) = "chilly bin"
"bathroom" = "toilet"
"parking lot" = "carpark" (this strikes me as very German)
"good for you" = "good on you"
"have a good day" = "cheers"

It's a testament to how little time we have spent interacting with Kiwis that this list is so short (which is partly why I included the phrases, though it feels a bit like cheating). Given the number of people who have told be about these words and the speed with which my business friend in St. Louis rattled off his own list, I can only assume that I will be encountering many more little discrepancies as we spend more time here.

We nonetheless followed the trail to this alleged hunk of ice, though not before taking a pit stop at the toilets wherein we were privileged to read some lovely signs warning us of the many ways it was possible to die should you dare venture beyond the marked barriers. Warnings in mind, we walked. It wasn't long until the path started widening, the trees started thinning, and the wind started to pick up an ever-so-slight chill. We reached the well-I'll-be-that's-really-quite-something valley shortly after that. Vegetation gone, we spent about 15 minutes crossing the rocky, still dusty ground (dust on flip-flops is one of those feelings I could really live without), growing steadily colder as we approached.

The first thing that impressed me is how much scenery became sidenotes. There was a particularly tall, strikingly shaped waterfall (if not a torrential one) which was simply something you had to walk past to reach the main attraction. In fact, there were at least half a dozen little waterfalls all over the mountains we were walking through, but none of them could do a thing to draw substantial attention away from this gargantuan pile of slush.

And soon we figured out why. For one thing, the glacier has its own river. The gray, probably below freezing water is very different from the friendly light blues we've been used to seeing. More impressive is the source of the water: at the bottom of the glacier, the water rushes from an alluring tunnel leading farther into the ice than we can see. Common sense holding us back even more strongly than the deathly yellow warning signs posted a few meters behind the rope barrier, we content ourselves with looking at the spectacle from afar.

The rocks were all covered in thin white lines

But we don't do so for long. To Zach's disappointment, we retreat from the glacier in search of warmth and food, Ian promising that we will be much better prepared for the next one.

The next one was Fox Glacier. Much less a surprise than the Franz Josef, the Fox is plainly visible from the carpark. Its runoff river is, as well. In fact, when I hopped up on the gravel ledge beside the water, before everyone was even away from the car (sunscreen, shoes, cameras, there's a lot to deal with at stops...), I saw a small boulder of ice maybe 75 cm in diameter rolling end over end through the water. As I looked upstream I saw several more of these chunks, though they were, somewhat more prosaically, stationary. It struck me that this glacier must lose water awfully quickly, what with the pretty swift river and the apparently frequent ice falls. It seemed like it would have to be reduced to nothing in a rather short time frame.

The river is wider than it appears here; it's split into several channels

View of the glacier close to the carpark

Then we discovered how ridiculously gigantic it is. From where we were standing when we reached the barrier we could see a hefty wall of ice, snow, and quite a bit of dirt (the dirt in particular, along with the melting pattern, really made me think of some forgotten slushie abandoned on the side of the road), but from the overhead view on the sign next to us, we realized we were looking at just a fraction of the whole thing (the pictures (I super swear they're coming) will be more revealing than any rough guesses I can make now at just what that fraction is). Pictures below!

We were unsure of the best place to camp for the night, but when we pulled into Lake Paringa (not 100% sure that's what the name actually is -- I'll consult with the crew when they wake up and change this if necessary) we realized we'd found it. It was a gorgeous lake surrounded by mountains and it was free.

Photomerge! Click to check out the full-size version.

It was also where we met Kyle.

Kyle. To my knowledge, our only photo of him.

Kyle is a fellow American who graduated high school last year and took a year off to travel the world with his grandfather. The two have been to 49 countries in the last 5 months and this is their last stop. I was impressed and more than a little bit jealous at the story. Grandpa even came over and chatted with us a bit as we were cooking supper. It turns out they have been following a very similar path to us, including stopping at both glaciers today and planning to drive to Queenstown tomorrow. Though he left us to eat in peace when Zach finished the meat sauce for our pasta, we probably haven't seen the last of the two of them.

We finished the night with a game of caveman poker. We finally bought a deck of cards on our last grocery trip and decided to christen them tonight on the lake. Since we had no chips, we gathered up rocks, leaves, and stalks of something that looked like wheat. The stakes: our last three ginger cookies, two to the winner and one to the runner-up. The result: one of the strangest games of poker I've ever played, complete with a red light/strobe light hand that Zach managed to win despite being far more interested in the flashing colors of the cards than the outcome of the hand. After the game was over, Zach crawled out of the tent to savor his well-won cookie, I stayed in the tent and left my cookies for the morning, and Wes tucked in for another night under the stars.