Sorry for the Group Email

Here’s something I’ve never grasped, and I’m hoping someone can explain: how has it happened that New Zealand’s twin islands never developed names more distinct than “The North Island” and “The South Island”? New Zealand’s placenames are almost legendarily fun to write and say: Ruapehu, Waitomo, Taupo, Omarama. Exactly why the North and South islands don’t get the kind of special treatment its major towns do is a mystery to me.

Wellington, at the tip of the South Island, is said to be one of New Zealand’s finest cities, which in a country full of handsome towns and villages is quite an achievement. We wouldn’t know, though. From Mount Ruapehu we headed to Wellington, and managed to see a campsite and the ferry terminal, jettisoning our 1999 Nissan Sunny before we got on the boat.

On the other side we picked up a Toyota Yetz, which was distinct from the Nissan in that it was delivered with a full tank of fuel. Also it had an automatic gearbox, which meant that we could no longer freewheel downhill, and made it prone to downshifting during particularly close-run overtaking manoeuvres. So you might get, I don’t know, three-quarters of the way past a large truck, only to lose all your momentum as another large truck crested a hill from the other direction.

We headed away from the ferry port in Picton and headed to the Abel Tasman national park, which is reknowned for its hikes and trails. When we arrived, though, the weather was abysmal. Torrential rain hissed on the windscreen as we drove in the spray of lorries and faster traffic (which believe me, in a Yetz, is virtually everything not carrying cattle), and nothing improved once we arrived. It was a shame, because in those brief periods that the sky did clear the views were stupendous.

If New Zealand’s North Island is best known for its rolling hills, the South Island is all about drama. Snow-capped peaks run down its backbone in the shape of the Remarkable mountain range, and its hills and valleys are craggy, glacier-shaped dips and peaks. Abel Tasman is reputed to have some of the best of these but, sadly, we wouldn’t know.

Instead, we headed first to Greymouth, then to the Fox Glacier on the west coast.

Fox Glacier is an impressive thing. Its face (“terminal”, for geography fans) rises about sixty feet off the floor of the valley, and rises over eight thousand feet into the southern alps. The ice flow itself is thirteen kilometres long, and the terminal can move up to four metres towards the Tasman sea per day, which in glacier terms is positively supersonic.

You can’t actually go near it, though, unless you go with a guide. Glaciers are tricky things, it turns out: thinly-covered crevasses and bewilderingly complex under-ice plumbing systems mean if an idiot – me, for instance – went traipsing across the Fox Glacier, you’d get very long odds on his safe return.

So we paid our money and were given a set of boots, ice crampons and three guides who energetically set about carving steps in the glacier for us.

The biggest problem with clambering about on glaciers is the heat. At points you’re hiking energetically over icey hillocks, stretching over crevasses and sweating copiously into your thermal underwear, then you dip into the shadows and the temperature plunges. The sweat which was keeping you cool ten seconds ago turns into ice-cold rivulets on your back and your waterproof trousers accumulate freezing condensation.

The ice, though, was quite something. The time between becoming glacial ice and dripping off the front of the glacier can be up to sixty years, and despite the tall valleys and water drainage systems giving the glacier a monolithic, permanent appearance, the whole thing is constantly moving. Often piles of slate – sometimes head-crushingly-large pieces of slate – would clatter down from the sides of the hill, carved out of the valley by the passing ice. We spent around four hours clambering around on the ice with our small group of sweaty tourists and, of course, if you find yourself in New Zealand, clambering about on a glacier is something you’d be a fool to miss.

By the time we got back to our tent in Franz Josef we were exhausted and hot. Which was lucky, because the thing about camping in the alps is that it’s not exactly tropical. Ever since we’d been in New Zealand we’d been dogged by occasional bouts of bad weather, but in Franz Josef things turned positively chilly. I’m not sure what the temperature got down to – my thermometer died of heat stroke in Vietnam – but suffice it to say: we were wearing outfits we’d previously only needed to go hiking in Siberia. Thermal undies, hiking socks (two pairs, that night), sweaters, big puffy arctic jackets, the lot. And hats. The problem with being cold when you’re wearing everything you own is that there’s nowhere to go from there, which is, frankly, pretty demoralising.

Still, we’d hiked over a glacier. Camping somewhere cold was a very small price to pay.

Dave has warmed up slightly, but recommends those lovely Ranulph Fiennes arctic sleeping bags for those going camping in New Zealand during the winter.