Slippin' and a-jumpin'

Things you don't really need to hear, particularly in fairly quick succession:

1) "Yeah, I heard someone died on Fox Glacier about a month ago, just lost his grip and fell into a crevasse."
2) "Hi guys, I'm your guide on the ice today. We'll go round the group and introduce ourselves, ok? My name's Brendan, and I've been guiding people up the glacier for about a month now."

Eeep. By the time they got round to me, it was all I could do not to cry out "My name's Ben and damnit I want to live!" and fall to my knees, sobbing pitifully.

I wasn't convinced that the tale of glacier death was anything more than the backpacker version of an urban myth - see also the bungy jumper who lied about his weight, with spectacular results - but I restrained the urge to employ Google to find out, because Kiwi news reports can be a bit colourful and I didn't fancy reading something like:

"...witnesses say the guy fell for a fucking age, bouncing off razor sharp lumps of ice on the way down and giving the rest of the group an excellent idea of how deep the crevasse was with his agonised screams. Mary, 46, from Christchurch, said:
'What was left of him flowed out of the glacier terminal face like a strawberry slush puppy. I got a great photo of it - want to see?'"

The leaflets describing the Franz Josef glacier hiking experience proudly tell you about the patented Ice Talonz (the 'z' was somehow reassuring, as though if it had been spelled correctly it would have indicated some serious business ahead rather than a tourist attraction), with which you scamper up the ice like the proverbial mountain goat, spikes radiating from your foot at every conceivable angle. You could dance the bloody Charleston and not fall over, for God's sake.

Turns out that's not the case on Fox. I checked in, slightly nervous after reading the sign saying "a good level of fitness is required for the full day hike" as though the receptionist would eye up my beergut, cock an eyebrow, and pull a lever to send me sliding down to the 'Flabby Amateurs' section, and was presented with a gammy pair of leather boots and some ancient crampons that covered about two square inches of sole just before the heel. The next six hours promised to be entertaining.

Well, sorry to disappoint but I owned that ice like a latter-day Shackleton. I was used to walking on the flats of my feet after the mangling they took on the Heaphy, so the required trudging style came naturally to me. The only time I was close to a tumble was towards the end when the ground was more rock than ice and we were all getting a bit cocky, but even then it was a lad called Tim that came a cropper rather than me. Which is all rather boring, so lets move on to something I was far less confident about - bungy jumping!

First thing to be said is that a 43m bungy jump is about 194 times scarier than a 12,000 feet skydive. With the latter there's no moment of truth, no point where it relies on you having the guts to step up and step off. You're strapped to some gung-ho fella who just sees you as another pack fixed to his front, and frankly he doesn't give a toss if you're having second thoughts about something that seemed like a fine idea on the bus.

Bungy jumping though. Standing on a ledge, toes poking out over the end as a strangely familiar gung-ho fella tells you to smile for the camera - I even managed a thumbs up, probably on the basis that if I lost my balance and fell it would save a lot of hassle - counts down from five and then it's all up to you. I intended to shout "motherfucker!" as I jumped (there were lots of schoolkids on the viewing platform and I wanted to do my bit in making the world a slightly worse place) but as I leapt into the void my voice vanished. Nothing, not even a "meep", escaped my lips until the second bounce, at which point I managed a "yeeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhwoooooohoooooofuckinyay!"

It's fantastic - shorter than a skydive, obviously, but infinitely better. A boat at the bottom hauled me in and unstrapped me, and I ran up to the girl on my bus who'd just jumped before me.

"I wanna do another one!" I said, "Sod it, I'm doing the Nevis jump, that's three times as high as this one!"

That might've been the adrenalin talking - I really should stick to my itinerary, which sees me starting the Routeburn track tomorrow - but by whatever fictional deity floats your boat, do a bungy when the opportunity arises, you won't regret it.

Oh, and I just searched for glacier deaths - turns out it was on Franz Josef. Those Ice Talonz, eh?