The Morning After: Franz Josef Glacier

Yes...there are glaciers in New Zealand. Franz Josef Glacier is one of the aforemnetioned, and it is also the next town we stayed in. While Franz Josef was pretty small, it has plenty of overpriced bars and restuarants for us to enjoy before we went on our 3/4 day glacier hike. Our first night in Franz we met Melissa, a girl from Colorado who was traveling by herself. We were pretty interested in the fact that she works for Budweiser in the Quality Control department, meaning she tastes beer all day. Apparently, as an employee in Quality Control you must take a Breathelizer after each shift and are driven home if they find you are too drunk...What a life! Anyways, we invited Melissa out to dinner with us, and for some crazy reason she paid for the entire meal...Quite possibly the nicest person we've ever met.

The next day we got suited up in our snow gears and rubber boots and took the bus out to the glacier. After a hike through a rainforest we finally caught our first glimpse of it. It was the first of many times I would have my breath taken away that day...I turned to the guys and reminded them that we were going to "hike that bitch". To walk out of a rainforest and see a glacier is one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.

We clipped on our talonz, quoted the appropriate Napoleon Dynamite lines and headed up the glacier with our guide. As the most fearles of our group we were put at the back of the line. Everyone seemed to think we were from the part of Canada full of mountains and trails, so we didn't bother correcting them and instead regaled them with tails of our extreme hikes up paved sidewalks with zero elevation.

Honestly though, this was quite possibly the coolest experience of my life, and something I'm sure may never happen again.

We celebrated that night with some drinks out on the town and started to notice a rash of mullets the likes of which has never been seen. This would be an ongoing theme for the rest of the trip as it turns out that the mullet and the less stylish rat tail are making a comeback in NZ.....Ewwww