Let me start off with a correction from my previous post. I left you saying that I was off to a shrinking glacier. Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are actually expanding, thanks to this whole earth warming thing that you keep hearing about. That sounds wrong, but really it does make sense. Let me explain.

What usually happens here on this island is this; wind flows over Australia and heats up and it then keeps going east, over the Tasmanian sea where it picks up moisture, until it is suddenly slammed into the Southern Alps of New Zealand. All that warm wet air heads the only way it can, up, whereupon it dumps all that water as snow and rain. Viola, you have yourself a couple of glaciers that flow into a tropical forest.

When you add global warming to the mix, the air that flows over Australia is hotter, which in turn allows that air to carry more moisture when it goes over the Tasmanian sea, and this brings more snow when that hot air is shot upwards when it hits New Zealand. So there you have it, the only glaciers in the world that are not shrinking.

When we when up onto the Franz Joseph ice, the clear weather stopped being nice and the rain was on. It stayed on for the rest of the day, plenty long to soak every part of my body. It was a warm rain fortunately, and my synthetic clothing kept me warm just fine. It was an experience to spend eight hours on a huge piece of continuously melting piece of ice. It similar to the risks you encounter on a mountain--such as steep slopes, scree sliding, and the overuse of knees--with the added bonus risk of plummeting down to an icy death. Honestly, for our group tour it was actually very safe and low risk, but if someone were to have a suicidal streak in them, the possibilities are bountiful up there.

Did I mention that it was beautiful? It sure is. The ice gets a mysterious blue the higher up you get, because it has been compacted forty times the density of fridge ice. It is cool stuff, pardon the pun.

Man, this whole island is stunning. I saw Mt. Cook today as well. It is a big one. I have to show you the pics. Alas, you must wait till I sort through this batch when I get home.