Franz Josef Glacier

We woke up early to start our 9 hour trip up a huge 12km glacier in the Southern Alps. All my fears about fitness were totally unfounded as there were lots of people going up the glacier the same day as us, one girl in our group amusingly kept shorts on the entire time and had almost purple legs by the time we came down!

Our guide enjoyed using his pick axe at every possible opportunity, cutting new steps in the ice or remoulding old steps. He also enjoyed the challenge of moving massive boulders, even if he only managed to shift them a could of centimeters. We covered a good distance and climbed up through bright blue ice caves, walked along great waves of ice and had spectacular views of the glacier below us descending into the valley. Walking up to the top we were told would take around 25hours solid and the blocks of ice up there are the size of houses. Many of them had shifted over night as the weather had warmed up. We had perfect sunshine for most of the trip and there is nothing like crunching across ice to make you want a cold glass of coke with ice cubes!

In the evening we got entry to the glacier hot pools which are 3 outdoor pools fed by heated glacier water heated to different temperatures. It was the perfect way to relax after a long day.