Fox Glacier and Lake Mathison

Day two! Tag out with the baby! It was Olivia and Laurel's turn to do a half-day hike of the Glacier.
None of us had a clear definition of a glacier before making this trip. For those who are not quite sure, a glacier is defined as a large body of ice moving slowly down a slope or valley. So glaciers are not at the top of the mountain, they are at the bottom and are constantly moving. How cool?

On this tour, our guide, Finn, had an ice pick and was constantly chopping at the ice to make steps for us as we hiked on top of 80m (263ft) of ice. Good job Finn! We had to attach metal studded crampons to our boots for grip on the ice.

It was a cloudier day then when Greg hiked yesterday, which at first made us think that it was not going to be as good, but the clouds hanging on the cliffs made it even more beautiful.

This is what happens when we get to play with the ice pick..

Do we look like professionals or what?

That's our group! We had a fun, quite multi-cultural collection of people which make our tour even better. Plus we had the best guide ever. What an incredible view, and what an incredible day!

This last picture gives you a good idea of the scale. Seriously epic. How amazing do those ice "stairs" look too?

Meanwhile, Greg took Imogen for a walk around Lake Matheson. The weather wasn't great, but at least it wasn't raining. After she woke up from her nap, he strapped her into the Baby Bjorn and went for it.

A viewing platform was built out into the lake, which made for perhaps the most scenic place Imogen will ever have a bottle of milk.

Now on a clear day, you can see all the way to Mount Cook. Also known by it's Maori name, Aoraki, Mt. Cook is New Zealand's highest point, topping out at 12,316 feet. Unfortunately, today was not a clear day, which was especially too bad, since the water of the lake reflects the mountain peak. The postcards make it look pretty incredible, but it's not so much when it's just reflecting a couple tree branches and an overcast day. Still a nice hike though. Greg is trying to get Immy excited about hiking and nature from a young age.

 Before we left the next morning we swung back by to get a picture of Mt. Cook since the clouds had cleared up. Not bad. Originally, we were going to visit the National Park there, but it turns out you can only get to it from the South and we were north of the mountain. Oh well.

L&O’s half day ended sooner than expected so we were feeling pretty ready to move on to Queenstown, via Wanaka. After many phone calls with the general manager of the motel and wotif.com, we were informed that we had waited too late to make the change. In addition to having completed the local activities, we were very ready to leave a severely unpleasant member of the staff, Rose. Each member of our party had separate opportunities to be offended by Rose. Laurel attempted to request fresh towels, Olivia was ever-hopeful for hot food, and all Greg wanted was a cold beer… Post request, none of us knew whether to swear or cry in response. In conclusion, Rose has yet to blossom and is quite accurately a stem filled with thorns. But other than her, our glacier experiences were absolutely incredible! Some of the best of our trip.

Fox Glacier and Franz Josef

There are two alpine glaciers right next to each other, one called Franz Josef and the other named Fox. Both have small towns built next to them that are connected by a very twisty thirty minute drive. While we stayed in Franz Josef that glacier is only accessible by helicopter right now, which hikes the price up drastically. Needless to say, we were going to Fox which you can just walk right up to (with a tour guide). Now, glaciers are not baby friendly, so we were dividing this up across two days. Greg was up first, going on an all-day hike of the glacier.

That ice "river" in the picture below? That's actually part of the, currently receding, glacier that Greg was about to hike. Pretty awesome.

This is Peanut Rock. As the guide said, it carries on the fine tradition of things being given terrible names at Fox. Whenever a fresh rock falls off the mountains and becomes part of the landscape, the first person to discover it gets to name it. A helicopter found this one, and was like, "Yeah, I guess it looks like a peanut, that's the name." Our guide was quick to point out how it looks nothing like a peanut.

Fox Glacier is one of three glaciers in the world where rainforest and glacier meet. The other two are in Patagonia and Alaska. Greg's hike took him up into the rainforest before coming back down to the glacier's face.

Yeah, I am going to hike all over that.

The glacier is an ever changing thing, that forms and reforms, moving up and down as it melts and freezes each day and night. The rocks on top of the ice move downhill about a meter a day. The larger ones will also topple over quite spectacularly, making it a pretty terrible idea to eat your lunch in the shadow of one.

Greg Otey, Glacier Explorer Extraordinaire.

Naturally formed ice cave. Beautiful, and Greg got to hike into it.

Yeah, that rock is not going to be there for long.

Since this glacier is right next to a temperate rainforest, all kinds of animal life lives right around it. The most notorious is a kind of mountain goat. To impress the ladies, two males will often butt heads and ram each other right on the edge of the rocks. Sometimes, one of the goats goes over the edge, and the guides will find their bones on the ice. Greg now has the leg bone of one such unfortunate goat on his desk at work as a memento.

Fox Glacier has been moving up and down this valley for thousands of years, and as a result, has carved out quite a chasm. Just three years ago the glacier extended several hundred meters farther down stream. During the last ice age, it was as tall as the cliffs in the background. The guide was quick to point out while global warming has certainly had an impact on the glacier, constant growth or reduction in size is normal for any glacier.

What a day! 

Meanwhile, Laurel and Olivia were going to explore around Franz Josef. Hmmm, Imogen, what should we have for breakfast?

They ended up at the Franz Josef Wildlife Center. Immy is not too sure about being posed next to this giant kiwi statue.

This is indeed a lot of rain.

Since kiwis are nocturnal birds your chances of seeing them out in the wild are pretty low. We saw two, one at the Napier aquarium and this one in Franz Josef. Now, since it is kept dark for them you are not supposed to take pictures. Please, no one report that Olivia is a notorious rule breaker. Good thing too, or we would have no kiwi pictures!

Following the Wildlife Center, it was time to head over to the Glacier Hot Pools and bathe in the crystal clear, pure waters. Immy and Olivia are clearly enjoying it.

Upon returning to the hotel Olivia noticed that we had possibly the worst designed shower ever. Good job, New Zealand.

Bank's Peninsula and Arthur's Pass

If you look at Christchurch on a map, there's a little bump that pops out of the island just south of the city. That bump is Bank's Peninsula and we took a day trip up that way to check it out. There's a small, quaint tourist village with a population of about 400 up there, but we spent most of our time taking in the sites and having a nice picnic lunch. Not bad, right?

Turns out that Bank's Peninsula is actually all that remains of a volcano. That little island to the right of us in the background? That's the caldera of when the volcano exploded several hundred years ago. It pretty much blew the whole area apart. We're pretty sure that New Zealand is 72% volcano. 

We drove down one side of the peninsula to get to a secluded beach to have lunch and relax in the sun. Immy loved it.

If you keep going that way long enough, Baby Girl, you get to America.

That sandwich is mine, right?

Family feet in the sand picture!

As in most places in New Zealand there were a bunch of sheep just hanging out all over. This guy was sedately crossing the road. He hollered at Laurel when she tried to get his attention to take his picture. Pretty funny.

The next day, we got up and started our big driving day- across the center of the island, through the mountains, to get to the West Coast, and glacier country. In the car and ready, let's go!

 

There were several scenic spots along the drive where you could stop and do hikes and take pictures. One such place was Castle Hill.

 

Laurel thinks it's never too young for the future designer to start learning her materials. This is limestone.

We stopped for lunch in the alpine town of Arthur's Pass. It's a blink and you'll miss it strip of store fronts, but is pretty crucial as it sits along about the only passable route through the middle of the country. 

Great views. If we hadn't had Imogen along, Greg would have loved to have done some serious hiking. Needless to say, Olivia and Laurel were quite glad we had Imogen along.

  

After a long day of driving we arrived in Franz Josef, a small town along the island's West Coast. The next couple of days were going to be big ones- hiking a glacier! 

It was a long day in the car, and Imogen was alright with it for the most part. She's a trooper. She celebrated by kicking out of all her blankets and sleeping diagonally in her bed. She also baby hulked out of her apple swaddle. It's better that way, apparently.

Christchurch

Our flight from Napier was about an hour and a half, and we landed in the middle of the South Island, in Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island. We were pretty excited to visit, but weren't quite sure what to expect. On September 4, 2010 a massive 7.1 earthquake shook Christchurch causing a lot of damage but no fatalities. Christchurch sits directly on top of a massive fault line, which seems to make it a terrible place to build a city until you remember pretty much all of New Zealand is on a fault line. Six months later, a strong, and shallow, 6.3 earthquake hit. While smaller, the intensity of the shaking made it one of the most violent earthquakes ever recorded. As a result 185 people died, and there was widespread damage throughout the city, including the complete destruction of the city's central cathedral. When we arrived a year and a half later, the city centre was still closed and there were a lot of buildings that looked like this: abandoned, destroyed, but not yet demolished. More on this later.

 

Before hitting the city, we stopped at the Antarctic Center right outside of the airport, recommended to us by a couple friends. We didn't realize this, but Christchurch is the stop off point used for all air travel flying to and from Antarctica. And thanks to a clever placement of tubes of water from the north and south poles, Greg was technically able to stand on both poles at THE EXACT SAME TIME. Also while rockin the Baby Bjorn carrier. Nice.

This was the second of our poor parenting decisions made on this trip (the first being the lion, of course). One of the big draws at the Antarctic Centre is the environment control room where they simulate what it actually feels like to be at the South Pole. We figured between the big coats provided and Greg's body heat, Immy would be totally fine with it. Spoiler alert- she was not fine with it. But here is a picture capturing us so young and naive. 

That's pretty cold, and it got colder. Imogen did not care for it all, despite being snuggled into Greg's coat. We had to bail out early.

 Laurel and Olivia toughed it out for a few more pictures. Here is Laurel in an igloo.

Olivia models the latest in ice-based transportation technology.

  

They also had a little penguin area, which were, of course, adorable.

That is a lot of ice. About 85% of the world's ice is frozen in Antarctica. There's a mountain range there that's covered in ice. If all that ice were to melt , sea levels would rise by over 60 meters globally. To put that in perspective, the United States would be split into two continents separated by the Mississippi Sea stretching from the Caribbean to the Great Lakes. So... let's not do that.

Below is a sampling of the food supplied to someone traveling to the South Pole. So... let's not do that either.

After checking into our hotel, we headed down to the City Centre to see what it looked like. This is as far as we got. Significant portions are still blocked off and aren't safe for the public to be near.

One really cool thing, is that city planners have taken a unique, hipster inspired effort to reinvigorate the city. It's called RE:Start and is a cluster of shopping, cafes, and food trucks made entirely out of shipping containers. Very cool and very innovative.

 

Saw this great ad for a maternity/lingerie store. This is just amazing. First off- the name. Second, has anyone ever gotten that dressed up to be just out and about with their baby? Great work, everybody. Great work.

This is the Bridge of Remembrance, Christchurch's monument for war veterans and victims alike. Originally constructed to honour those that fought and died in World War One it became a symbol for all wars. Finished in 1924, it was structurally damaged in the earthquake and is no longer safe to approach. The hope is to restore and strengthen it to withstand future earthquakes, while maintaining the heritage stonework. Here's hoping they succeed.

Possibly due to the circumstances, Christchurch was not our favorite city. Even before the earthquake we had a hard time seeing it as more than a series of suburbs that all ran into each other, rather than an actual formed city. But we're glad we went. It's incredible just how powerful nature is.