A glacial journey
Well, it wasn’t to be. The blue card breathes a sigh of relief!
All looked good for the day. Liam and I took off on the glacier terminus walk in the morning. This was an amazing couple of hours, through rain forest on to the riverbed leading up to the face of the glacier. Overhead, the choppers were busy and I had the urge to hum ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’, while the sheer valley walls spouted waterfalls. They looked like tiny streams from a distance, but as we traversed the three kilometres of the riverbed, it became apparent that they were huge torrents falling hundreds of metres to the floor of the valley.
Literally scores of people were traversing the narrow track and fording the streambeds. Many were in organized groups, kitted out in all-weather gear and led by businesslike guides, mostly backpacker girls with good legs and alpine picks.
The glacier was fascinating and impressive at the same time. Truly a living thing, it has moved down the valley in the last twenty years but is still about four kilometres from where it was in 1750. Climate change does funny things, but weather was about to do for us good and proper.
Our flight was delayed and then cancelled because the cloud, that had been moving in all day, filled the upper valley. By three, we knew it was not to be and went for a window shop and a Quiet Little Drink in the pub.
It wasn’t a bad day, just not one that lived up to expectations; and with that view across the river to the snow-capped ranges and the glaciers, one couldn’t have too many regrets. The heavens opened in the evening, rain heavier than anything Paula and I have seen or heard since the Lakes in 2006, so tomorrow may have thrills of a different kind.
