Franz Josef Glacier
It's odd to walk through groves of palm trees on our way to see the glacier.
This glacier isn't as wide as Athabasca nor does it have a pool of water in front of it catching all the melt, but it does have a fairly fast-running stream flowing over the moraine. Warning signs tell us not to take the unimpressive stream for granted as it can, without warning, surge and take us along with it.
None of that happened to us while we were there, though less than 2 weeks ago a tourist who was on a guided tour of the glacier fell into a crevasse and was fatally injured. We didn't go onto the glacier itself, having done that at Athabasca. Besides which, the usual winter topography in our area is not un-glacier-like.
Scenery as we left Greymouth for the glacier was gorgeous, especially around the coast. We passed many sleepy towns along the way, many of which had very neatly kept houses. Oddly, we saw no people. Anywhere. It was very Stephen King like.
Odd things we saw:
A bird, riding on the back of a sheep.
Many sheep, generally doing sheepish things.
Road and Rail trestle bridge. Twice today we crossed a river on an active railroad trestle bridge (I think I'm repeating myself here!)
And to the tune of "Blood on the Saddle"
There was blood on our tires, and
blood ont he ground
from the deada, mushed stoats
That were spread all around.
Stoats are bad. So are possums. They've been introduced here and have multiplied so quickly that they are a threat to native birds and in particular, Kiwis, which are endangered. The stoat belongs to the weasel family and it's apparently a voracious killer despite its small size.
This glacier isn't as wide as Athabasca nor does it have a pool of water in front of it catching all the melt, but it does have a fairly fast-running stream flowing over the moraine. Warning signs tell us not to take the unimpressive stream for granted as it can, without warning, surge and take us along with it.
None of that happened to us while we were there, though less than 2 weeks ago a tourist who was on a guided tour of the glacier fell into a crevasse and was fatally injured. We didn't go onto the glacier itself, having done that at Athabasca. Besides which, the usual winter topography in our area is not un-glacier-like.
Scenery as we left Greymouth for the glacier was gorgeous, especially around the coast. We passed many sleepy towns along the way, many of which had very neatly kept houses. Oddly, we saw no people. Anywhere. It was very Stephen King like.
Odd things we saw:
A bird, riding on the back of a sheep.
Many sheep, generally doing sheepish things.
Road and Rail trestle bridge. Twice today we crossed a river on an active railroad trestle bridge (I think I'm repeating myself here!)
And to the tune of "Blood on the Saddle"
There was blood on our tires, and
blood ont he ground
from the deada, mushed stoats
That were spread all around.
Stoats are bad. So are possums. They've been introduced here and have multiplied so quickly that they are a threat to native birds and in particular, Kiwis, which are endangered. The stoat belongs to the weasel family and it's apparently a voracious killer despite its small size.
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