29 - 30th Nov - Franz Josef Glacier

Our first day in Franz Josep town was spent sleeping off the hangover from Monteiths. The second day we organised a full day walking on the Glacier. Kitted out in walking boots, waterproof trousers and jacket, hat, gloves and scarf we made our way by bus to the car park of the glacier. The car park is a few km away and we walked towards the glacier. It looked really small until you realised we were a few km away. The face is a over 100m high and it snakes up the valley for a couple of km.

We put on our ice talonz which made walking on the hard packed ice a lot easier and started the climb up the face. Thankfully there are steps up the face cut out by workers of the tour company each morning - what a job.

The 16 layers of clothing I had on, were a bit excessive and at each few steps stripped off another layer. We were split into different groups, Mairi going with the young fit people I choosing to stay with the old unfit farts.

The climb up the face was the hardest part of the day the rest was wandering around the fantastic Ice shapes down corriders of ice and through tunnels. The colours are amazing, deep illuminous blue reaching deep into the crevices. The easiest way I found to get through the narrow passageways and tunnels was to shimmy - it works - even if it looked a little strange slip sliding along the ice walls.

We lunched on top of the glacier eating heartily but drinking little - there's no toilets up here and the guide didn't want any yellow snow on her office! Sitting eating, the temperature quickly went down and the 16 layers were quickly put back on only to be taken straight back off once we started hiking again.

One of the older guys, kept getting his beer gut wedged in the ice - I kept telling him to shimmy but would he listen.

The couple of kms walk back to the car park was the longest ever but I had to make it to get to a toilet. Back at the town we ate and drank heartily in a really nice restaurant the Blue Ice where we were served large portions of lovely hot soups. We slept totally knackered a good knackered.