We hiked the glacier today!

Well, today was the big hike. we set out this morning aorund 8:45am to meet up with the glacier guided group for the half day hike up Franz Glacier. it was a nice sunny, but cold morning. we literally were hiking through a rainforest before we got to the glacier area. it's just so amazing to see the rainforest next to a glacier! i still can't get over that here. we walked up to an area where the receded glacier once was and saw the glacier in front of us about 3 kilometers away. so we had a walk before we could get to the glacier to climb it. the guides provided us gear to wear and for hiking on the ice. we were with a group of people who were new. these weren't the kiwi experience people, who left today. we're just staying on our own an extra day before we meet up with another group in christchurch. the hike up the glacier was the steepest in the world, they say. they say Franz Glacier has the steepest incline of any other in the world! we didn't go to the very top, but we went high enough. the full day hike would have been even more amazing b/c they take you inside the glacier caves. however, i'm glad we just did half day b/c the weather changed as we were coming down and it started to rain. it rains off and on here a lot since we are in a rainforest. anyway, it was steep and a little dangerous, but they actually had ropes we could hang on to for most of it. i really enjoyed the scenery and the journey with the folks. i met some more neat people from england and ireland.

after the hike, all we wanted to do was crash. we were so tired. we had a good lunch and then headed to our new lodging for tonight. we are trying a quieter place. we love it! it's nice and clean too. actually, they have a living room area where you can watch videos. we watched the third Lord of the Rings this evening. we had a room full of people join us to watch it. i realized how universal this movie is. everyone knows it from every country. we were joking as we looked at the scenery and i was trying to figure out where everything was. i know i need to give it a rest. can you believe what i found out about the hobbit land area that still exists on some man's farm? apparently, he allows people to view it for around $50 and it's only the holes left in the hills with white boards left for where the hobbit's homes were. how sad! i guess he found his means of making a living. i heard there was even a minister in the NZ government for Lord of the Rings. that is crazy. here's the scoop on the rest of the movies filmed here... King Kong is being filmed by the same director as Lord of the Rings here in NZ right now just outside of Wellington. He also already has contracted to film the Hobbit here in NZ, too. (i'm glad about that!) i heard Last Samarai with Tom Cruise was actually filmed here in NZ too. as they say here, "oh there's just heaps of films here." every now and then, julie and i keep having to ask "what does that mean?" we just don't understand some of their words or expressions. the satellite tv here shows american tv shows. tonight we watched some of that as we tried to relax our muscles from the hike today. i still can't believe we did the grand canyon. the hike today was a bit like that except much shorter. it was the same rugged rocky trail that you hope your foot doesn't slip off of. we had talons on the bottom of our shoes for traction on the ice.

tomorrow, we get the bus to greymouth to meet Al and he's driving us back to Christchurch. i downloaded some pictures to a cd last night and after taking a break from seeing some of them, it was so awesome seeing the sites we have been blessed to see here. these places are truly breathtaking! the scenery is fantastic. today, i had to pinch myself when i saw a sign saying new zealand. it's still not real. neither does it seem real that we will be graduating in 15 days! julie pointed that out to me today!