I'm so cool I'm glacial.

So I know I seem to be a binge and purge blogger, but I finally have decent internet and many glorious things to share with you wonderful people who (hopefully) pay at least a little attention to my rambling travel rambles.  

So today was a most glorious day because even though I only got a couple hours of sleep, it's hard to feel sleepy when climbing around on New Zealand's largest glacier.  But first, back to the boring stuff you've missed. and by boring I mean of course only slightly less thrilling than scampering around a giant moving block of ice with spikes tied to my feet.

For instance, we made a nice trip up to Arthur's Pass.  I am now officially the designated car reader and we have made our way through one Jack Vance and have started in on the sequel.  The weather at the lookout was...interesting.  But even with the fog the view was striking, rain agrees with New Zealand.

Then there were the Kea birds.  One of the world's only alpine parrots. Why there are any alpine parrots?  I must claim ignorance.  They are obnoxious yet hilarious.  Particularly good at whining and stealing food, they will eat everything from your lunch to your tires (they have a weird rubber thing, I think maybe that discovery channel show about the woman who eats comet should look into it).  Saying they weren't shy is an understatement so grand it's almost sarcasm.  Plus they would stare you down with a glint in their eye somewhat like they wonder what you'd taste like.

Dad wanted me to scare one so we could see the orange underside of their wing. Instead he scared me. That bird had a mean poker face. 

cool glacier stuff

So on to the cool glacier stuff.   I made the trip alone and did the all day hike.  We were dropped off about half an hour from the base of the glacier, and for some reason unknown to myself we took the hour and a half walk through the rain forest with about 800 uphill steps.  Sure we had some amazing views of Fox Glacier, and sure it's pretty damn cool to be able to say I hiked through a rain forest and came out and climbed right on to a glacier, not sure how many places you can do that in the world.  But after we made it all the way up the side of the valley we had to climb back down to the glacier.  So we strapped on our crampons, tried to fend off the exhaustion from climbing so high within an hour that my ears popped. multiple times, and made our way onto the ice.  

Fox Glacier

 Unlike the half day which spends most of it's time getting to and from the glacier and then staying on a precut path on the lower sliver of the glacier, we went off-roading, and actually made it higher than our guide had ever been.  We also found an ice cave we got to climb around inside, and get soaking wet from the melting glacier dripping on us from above, but luckily the glowing quality of the glass makes it feel a little less claustrophobic when you're squeezing through a passage barely wider than you.  

 Absolutely exhausted I don't think I'll be awake past 9:30 tonight, but it was so worth it getting to scramble around, crossing crevasses, climbing up ice faces, and getting our guide to take goofy pictures.  We also ended up with a gorgeous day in the middle of a week of rain and clouds.  Not a cloud in the sky and we had sunshine over the ice almost all day, not the usual for fall on the south island.  So this may have been my first experience with ice picks and crampons, but it shall not be my last, but now it is time for bed since tomorrow morning I'll be going to see the sunrise over Mount Tasman.