A visit to the Westland tourist towns of Franz Josef and Fox Glacier, famed for their towering twin glaciers, mountains, lush rainforest and rugged coastline, can be a revitalising experience, as Wanaka reporter Matthew Haggart found out.
Squeezing myself out of a narrow ice tunnel on Franz Josef Glacier, I couldn't help but feel a little like I'd been reborn.
Getting close to such natural wonders as the frozen ice landscape of Franz Josef glacier can have that effect on you.
We had flown to the upper reaches of the glacier by helicopter - bluebird skies and calm conditions providing our group with stunning views down the crinkled and frozen ice face and out to the Tasman Sea.
Earlier, we had joined a large group of prospective visitors at the headquarters of Franz Josef Glacier Guides queueing for their glacier experience.
Less than an hour later, I was blinking in the bright reflective glare, about 1300m above sea level and surrounded by the spiky glacier landscape above the rainforest-covered slopes of the lower river valley.
After strapping crampons to our boots, our group spent the next couple of hours traversing the glacier, before we arrived at a narrow opening leading straight in to the frozen ice.
Our guide Tai - a diminutive and agile Japanese mountaineer - had the perfect build for squeezing himself into the tight tunnel.
About halfway along the frozen underpass he was leading us through, I was wishing I shared the same attributes.
The first few metres were fine - more than enough room to clamber through, hunched over in a crouched shuffle - but, as we moved further on, the smooth opaque walls became tighter and tighter.
Before too long, I'd dropped on to all fours, before adopting a slithering belly roll to squeeze myself through a particularly tight passage.
Arriving at a point where an icy stream of water gushed through a ruptured fissure in the side of the tunnel, things started to get really interesting.
By the time I found myself jammed in tight, both front, shoulderwise, and also sideways, I was starting to wonder how Pete - the burly miner twice my size from the Australian West Coast - had managed.
It took a fair amount of manoeuvering - the removal of my backpack, the passing through of my camera - before I was able to finally fit through and emerge back on to the glacier surface.
I felt as if I'd just clambered out of some surreal frozen birth canal.
The 12km-long Franz Josef Glacier and neighbouring Fox Glacier (20km to the south) on the western slopes of the Southern Alps form the backbone of the Westland National Park, a designated World Heritage Site.
The area is a magnet for tourists and backpackers, who visit the area as part of a "must do" West Coast road trip.
Taking a heli-hike trip to get close to the upper reaches of either glacier is one of the best ways to view the twin natural attractions in all their splendour and glory.
With about 16 helicopters offering flights up to either of the glaciers, the steady buzz of chopper blades can begin early in the morning on any fine day on the Coast.
Four guiding companies offer a variety of trips, from half-day walking tours from the valley floor to the premium heli-hike option.
A significant tourism and accommodation industry in the twin towns of Franz Josef and Fox services the thousands of visitors who pass through the area.
A relaxing thermal dip was called for after a long day spent walking, and we were lucky to be booked into the new Glacier Hot Pools complex for a soothingsoak, balm for our tired muscles.
More than 30,000 visitors have taken advantage of the first commercial hot pools on the Coast, since the facility opened a year ago.
With three pools at varying temperatures - starting at 26degC, then 28degC, and a final toasty 30degC - you can either alternate between the pools, as we did, or find your appropriate comfort zone.
Private pools can also be booked, offering bathers the chance to unwind in their own hot tub surrounded by the tranquil rainforest.
Next door to the Glacier Hot Pools is another recent addition to the Franz Josef tourist attractions, Te Waonui Forest Retreat.
Opened in September, Te Waonui is a five-star luxury retreat built for the New Zealand Scenic Circle Hotel chain.
Our two-night stay at the rainforest-surrounded luxury hotel impressed.
The 100-room, five-star hotel has four wings, named after the four main types of native trees, and has a private enclave of rainforest.
The highlight of a stay at Te Waonui was the decadent five-course degustation meal, savoured at the retreat's Canopy restaurant, and well-earned after our day of glacier-related activities.
Stand-out servings included a duo of delectable local ingredients - sauteed West Coast whitebait on a creamy watercress and celeriac omelette with citrus-caraway-herb butter, while the coup de grace was a mouth-watering oven-roasted Jacksons Bay hapuka fillet with a warm fennel and wakame salad, potato confit, and crayfish butter.
Seated looking out over the forest canopy, with views ofsunlight retreating from the snow-capped peaks of the alps behind Franz Josef, our taste of the coast left us wanting more.
Franz Josef
Accommodation: Te Waonui Forest Retreat
State Highway 6, PO Box 47,Franz Josef Glacier 7856Ph: 03-7520555
tewaonui@scenicgroup.co.nz
Things to do:
Franz Josef Glacier Guides SH 6, Main Rd
PO Box 41, Franz Josef Glacier
Ph: 0800
GUIDESwalks@franzjosefglacier.com
Glacier Hot Pools
Cron St, Franz Josef
Ph: 0800-044-044
info@glacierhotpools.co.nz
A visitor to the ice admires the huge upper serac (glacier face) of the Franz Josef glacier.
