Style: January 08, 2020

STYLE | travel 65
I am peering into
the blue depths
of ice crevasses
compacted over
thousands of years
as the glacier
splinters on the
frozen bends of
what is still a
phenomenal 11kmlong
river of ice.
higher up the glacier we fly, the more
discoloured it is becoming. Instead of the
traditionally dirtier ice at lower altitude,
rising to blue fissures and pristine fresh white
snow, today almost the entire length of the
glacier is dusted grimy pink.
“Ash from the Australian bushfires,” our
pilot Sebastian explains through the headset.
Musing on global warming, we land and
disembark for a few precious minutes to
walk in the snow and pause to marvel at
this extraordinary environment. That and
the four helicopters now ducking and diving
around the same limited airspace between
peaks without colliding.
Back down to earth, the rain returns soon
after and the choppers fall silent once more.
Their rotor blades won’t turn for days.
It is time to raise my core temperature. I
don a towelling robe and my jandals to pad
my way around the hotel perimeter to a
corner where a guest path cuts through the
forest to the Glacier Hot Pools right next
Franz Josef glacier.
Image: Ngai Tahu Tourism