We set off in the morning to walk to the terminal face of the Franz Josef glacier. The first stop was at Sentinal rocks an old terminal moraine mound that gave pretty good views of the glacier. We then continued on along the river bed to within a couple of hundred metres of the terminal face. It was surprisingly warm this close to a huge block of ice!

We then took the short drive to the Fox Glacier and walked the chalet lookout walk. This walk through forest was rewarded with spectacular views of the Fox Glacier. On our return down the Glacier View Road (very inventive with road names in NZ!) we stopped at a lookout which gave a view of the upper glacier-stunning.

To continue our glacier fix we then walked up to the terminal face of the Fox Glacier. The Fox is much less steep than the Franz Josef so we were allowed much closer to the face. All the glacial views were making us keen to get on the ice!

We then headed out to Lake Matheson. A landmark famous for photos of Mt Cook and Tasman reflected in the lake. Unfortunately when we were there the clouds were hiding the mountains so the photo opportunities were not as good as hoped. After our hour long walk around the Lake we stopped in the cafe for a coffee and cookie. To our delight when we left the clouds had cleared allowing us to discover where the Mountains were! This resulted in us having to repeat our walk but the photos were worth the walk! We then returned to Franz Josef for a surprisingly not too chilly evening.

The next day we met just before 9 for a full day hike on the Franz Josef glacier. We were first kitted out with felt lined boots, crampons, over trousers, jacket, gloves and a beanie. We then had a short bus ride to the car park at the glacier before the hour long walk to the face of the glacier. We then donned the crampons and started our ascent up the glacier. The initial part of the glacier is covered in rock and glacial flour (rock dust!) and just looks dirty! We soon climbed past this and started to find some cleaner ice. With our guide chopping a route over the ice with his ice axe we made steady progress. New steps have to be chopped out everyday as the melting ice and rock falls change the terrain on a daily basis. As we continued upwards we stared to explore more interesting formations of ice caves and crevices. Around 1/2 way up we were offered ice axes which we couldn't refuse! Th rest of the day was spent exploring the many varied formations including small rivers and huge holes that penetrate through hundreds of metres of ice to the bottom of the glacier! On our return down the glacier we came across a pool of very chilly looking water. Some crazy folk from one of the other groups took the option of a glacial swim. Neither of us fancied walking down in wet clothes and sodden boots! A great day all round and rewarded with fush n chups!

A helihike on Fox Glacier was the highlight of the following day. The day again started with kitting us out along with advice about not getting blown away by the helicopter! We had a short but very scenic flight around the glacier before landing about 200M higher up than we had got to on the Franz. Whilst the glacier formation were similar theyre were more caves and the ice was much cleaner and bluer (a result of it being more compressed). We investigated many caves and crevices beofr finding a hole through to the floor of the glacier. The guide told us that they had experimented dropped a walking pole into the hole and it took just 10 minutes to come out the river at the base of the glacier - we avoided falling in fortunately! We then took a flight back to where we had started the day and headed off down the West coast towards Wanaka. We took in some lookouts along the coast before heading inland at Haast through the Haast Pass to Wanaka. We stopped at a couple of waterfalls and blue pools on the way before the road opened out to views of the lakes surrounding Wanaka.