Tasman Glacier

Weather forecast: cloudy with a possibility of a shower or two

Uhmm not good considering that we were visiting Mount Cook and the Tasman Glacier. Even though I had originally booked the morning tour I had been advised that this was fully booked so we were taking the noon one, that was actually really good as most of the rain was in the morning, nice.

The highway connecting Twizel and Mount Cook village is in really good condition and other than a couple of one lane bridges it is a pleasant 45 minutes to an hour drive depending on the number of stops one does to get photos of the lake with the snow peaks in the background. We didn't really stop because as the report said it was a bit cloudy. At the end of the highway, on one side of the mountains, lays the Hermitage hotel, the view instantaneously transports you to the European Alps, well this time of the year it was lacking a bit of snow but still amazing.

Just arriving at the Hermitage hotel and the rain starts, damn it. On top of that there was an exhibition of cars from the 50's that had taken almost all the car park so we ended up some 100m from the main entrance. Of course my wife volunteered me to get out of the car to reconfirm our booking so after speeding like the old Carl Lewis did back in the day I got inside the hermitage just in time to see the rain stopping, great.

After confirming the tour we had time (yes my wife was here now with the little one) to explore the souvenir shop and had something to eat. The rain had eased but it was still a bit cloudy so the top of Mount Cook wasn't visible, what we didn't know is that we actually had to wait a few more days to get a photo of the mountain from Fox Glacier.

The bus took us through a dusty, bumpy road to the entrance to Tasman Glacier or so we thought, from there is a 20 - 25 minutes walk through an unpaved track to the start of the Glacier, there are toilets at the start of the track only.

After some safety advice we were ready to board the boats, yes contrasting the Glaciers on the West Coast, the Tasman has an end terminal lake where the tours are conducted. The clouds had finally gone, well they were actually sitting on top of Mt Cook, when we finally got on the water. The waters are dark and a bit muddy, apparently the ice moves down bringing rock and soil leaving all of these exposed when it melts.

The first Glaciers we saw were also grayish, again because the water is evaporating leaving more soil exposed. Our tour guide / boat driver / safety guru was really switch on explaining facts about the glacier combined with some humor. Further into the lake and the blue Icebergs start to pop up, time to get ready for some photos.

The boat got so close to the icebergs that we were able to touch them and get some ice for souvenir, well they obviously melted but anyway nice the try.

We stopped some 100m from the terminal face of the glacier due to safety precautions, apparently the face had been a bit unstable since the Christchurch earthquake in February. Heading back to firm land we had the chance to see one of the glaciers spinning around repositioning itself as the Ice melts.

Another 20 minutes walk to the bus and from there to the Hermitage. Back in Twizel I got some petrol for the car, even though I still had half the tank since I left Christchurch we were heading to Queenstown tomorrow via Lindis pass, better to be on the safe side.Read more