Franz Josef

Day 9
Gina and I went to the grocery store in the morning to grab snacks for our drive to Franz Josef and then got on the bus at 8:30am. After a 3 and a half hour drive we arrived in a town called Hokitika where we stopped at a jade store and got lunch. After the jade store a bunch of the girls and I walked down to the beach to walk around and then we went and got Subway. We got back on the bus and drove another hour and 45 minutes before arriving in Franz Josef and checking into our hotel (Rainforest Retreat). After dropping my bags in the room, I walked down the street to go to a safety orientation (for the heli hike I was doing the following day) and then walked across the street at 4pm to go kayaking. After filling out the necessary forms, we got in a van and were driven out to Lake Mapourika (a glacier formation from the last ice age). The kayaks were a 2 person, so I shared mine with Jamie (a guy on our tour group from Sydney). The lake was unbelievable; it is a national park so there are no houses around and it was so quiet and the water was so still. The water was very cold so we didn’t go swimming but we were out there for probably 3 hours. At one point the lake turned into narrow paths with trees on both sides and very little room to pass by each other. Once we were deeper down the narrow path, we all were given edible leaves that the Maori people would use if they had a toothache (the leaf made your mouth go numb it was so spicy, I ate a whole one). We washed the leaves down with the pure lake water which was very refreshing. While on the lake we saw a white heron (a rare and sacred bird to the Maori people) fly over the lake which is supposed to be very good luck. Ever since I was a kid, I have always enjoyed spending time on a lake but nothing will ever compare to this amazing experience being immersed in nature with no human disruption to the land. Once we got back to the cars we got undressed out of the equipment and returned back to town. Our dinner was included tonight and was at our hotel so we went to the restaurant and joined the rest of the group (all those that didn’t go kayaking were already done eating). I got a beer from the bar and then the food came out, it wasn’t that good but we were all so hungry we didn’t really care. We all hung around drinking for a while and I went to bed once the one bar closed. Which was probably around 10 or 10:30pm.

Day 10
Today I got up around 7:45am to grab breakfast and then walked down the road to the quad biking place for my morning activity (the town is small and everything is walkable). Once we checked in they brought all of us down to where the bikes were (I shared a bike with Simone, from LA). We were given gear to put on including a jacket, pants and rubber boots (which was good because it was cold and muddy) and had to all drive through a practice obstacle course to show we were able and comfortable driving. Then we made our way into the forest which had narrow paths and was muddy and rocky. The guides did a great job rearranging the quads based on how fast and confident drivers were (we ended up as the 3rd one). Parts of the drive were through the forest and other parts were in open space with views of the mountains/ glacier and along the glacier stream (it was very rocky at points). I’ve been quad biking before when I was in Greece but it was nothing compared to this. This quading was intense and so much more fun than I was expecting it to be. We were going very fast and getting thrown all over the place. We were probably out for about 90 minutes or so before returning to the starting point (I was wearing a long sleeve, pull over sweater, and leggings and I was still pretty chilly). I headed back to the hotel to get ready for my heli hike (taking a helicopter up to the glacier to land on it and hike the glacier) early afternoon. After getting changed, I realized I left my wallet in Simone’s bag so I spent over an hour going in and out of stores trying to find her without any luck. Then we got word from Dan that our heli hike had been cancelled (the clouds really affect this activity and it is cancelled more often than it goes) which was disappointing because it was a very clear day outside but unfortunately the hiking trek had been destroyed in a recent storm. Some of us were able to get rescheduled onto a scenic flight (which flies you up and you can land on the glacier and take pictures) around 3pm so I grabbed lunch to kill some time and went back to the hotel to hang out at the picnic tables with a bunch of other people. At 2:30pm I walked to the company and they told us the flight was cancelled due to the weather (the clouds were coming in and hanging close to the mountains making it unsafe to fly). I was able to get scheduled onto the first flight the next morning before we left Franz Josef, there were no heli hikes available unfortunately. I felt like I had wasted a lot of the day having to wait around with things continuing to get cancelled but it was nice to just hang out. For dinner a bunch of us met at a place in town that had all different kinds of cuisine to choose from. I went to bed early because I had to get up early and we had another long travel day ahead of us.Read more