Lust In A Cold Climate

Saturday 20th March 2010, 8pm, Rainforest Retreat - Franz Josef.

When we arrived in New Zealand on Monday morning I used some of the time spent in bed that day to be productive; I made a list. There's very few things more satisfying than a list are there. Or more specifically, there are very few things more satisfying than ticking items off of a list. I don't get much excuse to make lists these days, given that I have nothing to do (don't panic, I'm aware of how excellent a situation this is). Lists I make these days tend to look something like this:

- E-mail Hannah
- Put photos on USB
- Wash clothes
- Buy shampoo
- Ring Emma
- Find camera charger
- Get Ella to sew up hole in leggings

Or this:

- Instant Noodles
- Avocado
- Vegemite
- Tomatoes
- Eggs
- Spaghetti Hoops
- Box of Wine

The list I made on Monday however, was drastically more exciting than either of these mundane examples. New Zealand is a country of outdoor activity and of organised fun, and so I have made a list of all the things that I hope to do whilst here. I am a very forgetful human being, good with names and faces, but terrible at remembering the day to day things which I am meant to accomplish. This list will hopefully prevent me from leaving the country in a month's time and saying something like, 'Oh but we can't go yet, I haven't done a bungy jump!'.*

Today I have managed to cross off my first agenda item. Franz Josef, a secluded and sleepy little forest town on the West coast, is glacier country, surrounded by mountains and caves of blue and white ice. Earlier this morning, I spent 4 hours hiking across one of them. Clambering in to waterproof gear, a pair of sturdy hiking boots and a little woolly hat that I was very fond of, a group of us followed our ridiculously attractive guide up and over a steep, rocky mountain to reach the icy plains we would be trekking across.

I'm not sure why Stuart, our guide, was so appealing to me. Maybe it's because he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts in freezing temperatures, maybe because whenever we reached a part of the climb that was too dangerous he started hammering away at the frozen ground with his ice pick like some caveman barbarian. Maybe because climbing mountains every day of his life has given him thighs the size of building blocks, maybe because he told me that before he did this job he used to work for Mountain Rescue, maybe because he laughed when I made a joke about Woolly Mammoths (not worth repeating). Needless to say, I moved up that incline of ice with the speed of a mountain goat and a grin like a Cheshire Cat. It's amazing what a man like Stuart can do for a girl's ability to enjoy feats of physical endurance, swooooon.

Thankfully I did remember to occasionally take my lecherous gaze away from Stuart's boulder-like bum bouncing along in front of me to look at the scenery. That would have been embarrassing wouldn't it.
'Whats does a glacier look like Grace?'
'Errrrm. Well it has blue eyes and brown hair, a boyish smile, a little bit of stubble and very broad shoulders.'
Focus Grace, focus. I remarked to Ella as we were walking along that I felt like I had stepped in to Narnia and was wandering around the grounds of the White Witch's palace. A place where everything is coloured blue and white, the sky above, the ground below, and the cliff faces enclosing you. Everything is made of ice, and the landscape rolls away in front of you so that it seems like the whole world has been frozen. We crawled through crevices, slid down mushy slopes, dug our spikes in to the side of treacherous, narrow ledges to prevent ourselves from losing grip and falling a few hundred feet to our death, and pulled each other over melting pools of deep turquoise water. The water did come in handy though; during a brief lunch stop in which I found every excuse I could to ask inane questions of Stuart, we filled our empty bottles up in the freezing ponds. It tasted so fresh and pure that I am now convinced glacier water is actually The Elixir of Life, and that logically, probably, I am now immortal.

Immortal or not, it's been an incredible day. I am cold and tired, but buoyed by the views I have tramped through, a proud sense of achievement, and the relief that even if you have to go half way up a glacier to find them - men like Stuart do exist.


*I'm no wimp, but bungy jumping is markedly absent from The List. What a ridiculous invention.