Arrival at Franz Josef

(me and the glacier)
The town of Franz Joseph exists for one reason only, to service the tourists going up to the glacier. The Franz Josef is (so the guide book says) the worlds fastest moving glacier. It's basically a river of ice tumbling down a mountainside incredibly slowly. At up to a meter a day it is much more active than most of it's contemporaries.

(the whole town of Franz Josef)
The town is actually just two parallel streets. To look at it, you might think it was a movie set designed to just look like a town if shot from the right angles.
Magic Bus rolled in around 2pm. Early enough for some people to do the half-day hike, but I had signed up for the full-day which left me time to kill until the next morning. So I set out with Franci a very cool German girl I had met and we hiked some trails along the glacier approach.
(The non-mirror pool)
It's weird to tramp a rain forest with a view of a giant pile of Ice. There was a "mirror pool" that never calmed down enough to be mirror like but the view didn't disappoint.
(Franci keeping her cool on the bridge)
We crosses an incredibly creaky bridge which unnerved Franci and we had an unusual emerald headed bird fly right over our heads and land in a branch right in front of us. I found later it was actually a kind of pigeon, in fact the largest member of the pigeon family.

I wound down the day with dinner and drink at The Blue Ice Lounge, one of the three bars in town. Phil and Drew were there with tales of their half day hike, as well Franci showed up and Sally a nurse from the UK. I called it an early night because I was looking forward to my big day on the Ice.