Hokitika - Franz Josef Glacier - Fox Glacier - Monro Beach

After I said goodbye to Markus at the airport, I drove back over Arthur's Pass to Hokitika because Markus had convinced me to join a heli hike on the Fox Glacier. So, I had to return to the West Coast. I arrived in Hokitika just in time for sunset and then went to Glowworm Dell when it got dark. There were so many glowworms, it was truly amazing!

The next morning, I started the Alex Knob Track at Franz Josef Glacier in beautiful weather and managed to reach the summit in only 2.5 hours instead of the 4 hours predicted by the DOC. Unfortunately, the mountains were quite clouded when I reached the top around 11:30 AM. I stayed at the summit until 5 PM, hoping that the clouds would clear, and chatted with two Germans, Jörn and Tom, who took two months off to travel after finishing their studies. It was fascinating to observe how the clouds repeatedly dissipated, but unfortunately, new clouds kept forming. Frustratingly, the sky was clear when we returned around 7 PM...

From the different heli hikes at Franz Josef and Fox Glacier, I chose the 'Extreme Fox Heli Hike'. This was the only option where you really had the chance to spend up to 7 hours on the glacier depending on the weather. The group consisted of 8 people plus two guides, and we started by assembling the equipment: socks, shoes, backpack, helmet, rain pants, rain jacket, fleece jacket, gloves, crampons, ice pick, climbing harness, provisions...

After everyone was equipped, we flew to the glacier in two helicopters, fastened our crampons to our shoes there, and then started the hike. The guides chose a route that was somewhat spectacular, where you had to maneuver along a fixed line or rappel down. After the hike, we were picked up by the helicopter and flown back to the town of Fox Glacier.

It was a lot of fun, and apparently, the guides hadn’t taken a group as high as we did in a long time. From higher up, we were also able to observe the participants of the 'normal' heli hikes, who only had an hour on the ice and were therefore sticking to well-trodden paths. By the way, during the heli hike, I met Kate from Auckland, and we went for a walk around Lake Matheson afterward.

I was so disappointed with the view from Alex Knob onto the glacier the day before that I decided to do the hike again for sunrise. I chose the day after the heli hike and set off at 3:30 AM. I was completely alone, with stars above me, glowworms in the forest, and through the trees, the lights from the town of Franz Josef Glacier looked like fireworks. Two opossums crossed my path, and as it began to dawn, the birds started to sing. When I reached the top, 10 keas were playing around on the summit, squawking and arguing, and the view of the glacier, the mountains, and the valley was just fantastic.

After I descended, I took a small detour to Peter’s Pool, where there was indeed a beautiful reflection of the glacier in a lake, and then drove to Monro Beach to watch penguins. Toa, one of the heli-hike guides, had shared his experiences with sand flies while fishing at Gillespies Beach. He said that he had covered every piece of skin except for his face with clothing, and the sand flies tried to burrow through the fabric to reach his skin. And that even the mosquito spray only deterred them for five minutes. I thought to myself, 'I was also at Gillespies Beach, it wasn't that bad.'

But when I was at Monro Beach, I understood what Tao meant. Because as soon as I arrived at the beach, my legs were covered with sand flies trying to get through my pants and shoes. And the mosquito spray I got from three spear fishers hardly lasted five minutes. Therefore, after 20 minutes on the beach, I started the 30-minute return journey. Mission Penguin - failed.