A month plus a week on and I am back writing a nonsense entry for this totally random blog of mine. A quick update of what has happen: school --> assignment --> test --> more test --> holiday (yeay) --> NOW: holiday almost ending. Despite the glamour of Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy, I'm not going to delve much into my medical student experience but I just wanted to recount the holiday I've spent. First up, was 'West Coast Revisited'. Perhaps, some of my loyal reader out there remembered my brief mention of my trip to the West Coast last year, so this year I returned. Why? To conquer the glaciers, the Franz Josef Glaciers to be exact. Franz Josef glacier are just one of the several glaciers situated at NZ West Coast (other notable glaciers - Fox Glacier, and Haast Glacier). A glacier is a large, slow-moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity.[1] What unique about this glacier is that it is situated between rain-forest! It just happen that the Southern Alps, a mountainous range running longitudinally in the middle of NZ South Island, hold up rain cloud from the Tasman Sea and cause the area to experience heavy rainfall and subsequent fall in temperature (esp at the valleys) help maintained the glaciers from melting away. Conquering is a bit hyperbolic I must say, as I only took a half day guided tour. Though rated as medium fitness intensity, it certainly was a light workout as during the tour, we stop a lot to allow our guides pike away ice to make steps. The tour took us through the rain-forest surrounding the glacier before proceeding to hike up the glacier itself. Special footwear (Spikes) was provided. Once there, the glacier is certainly magnificent. The ice are bluish in colour as ice absorbs all light except blue colour. The ice cubes you see in your fridges are white because it contain lots of air while these glaciers are compacted ice. Other activities on the glacier that could be done are heli ride and ice climbing. Wiki article on Franz Josef glacier is here. Anyway, here are some of my personal pics for sharing. Up top is me at the glacier it self, in between some icy valley there. Bottom photo: Top - the guide. The temperature is pretty warm, but the ice are cold. The guide was piking all day, thats why he's just in his short-sleeve shirt compared to us who are all in blue jackets. Bottom - More photo of the glacier and the group we were in.
