New Zealand is a patchwork quilt of other countries all in one delicious bundle. In Omarama, we had a little snippet of Utah at the Clay cliffs. In Doubtful Sound we visited an echo of Norway's fjords. Queenstown had a Scottish flavor and Wanaka - the English Lake District? (I'm reaching here because I've not visited the Lake District ... but there's a lake ... so...)
Our next stop - a chip off Alaska, with its glaciers - namely Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers.
This was as close as we were allowed to go - and even at that there was danger of falling rocks en-route. Why you couldn't stop baffled me - surely if rocks were falling you'd be as likely to be hit walking as standing still?
Even with the zoom lens on full - the glacier seemed very far away... and very dirty!
The other glacier, Franz Joseph Glacier, can be seen from the town of the same name.
The next morning we awoke to broken weather! The clouds had moved all the way down to street level. A fine drizzle of rain would make a hike uncomfortable and we'd not get a good view of the Franz Josef Glacier anyways.
"We've seen a glazier," we told ourselves. "No point getting soaked for nothing," we convinced ourselves. "Sod it - we have a picture of the glacier that we took from the main street - we're on holiday - we don't have to do anything we don't feel like," we concluded our justifications to ourselves. As the rain came on harder, we packed up and left. The waterfalls along the way were jaw dropping.
That rainstorm pounded Franz Josef for the next week and caused the river to burst it's banks flooding the town so badly a state of emergency was called.
This was one case where, in hindsight, we were glad we hadn't stayed longer! Poor old Franz Josef. I hope you've recovered now.
Byddi Lee
