Quite possibly the Best Drive in the World Ever took us from Nelson down the coast to Fox Glacier - a long drive but an amazing one. The scenery was spectacular, wild coastline and driftwood strewn beaches on one side of the road and lush rainforest on the other, weird and wonderful rock formations and a transition from the beaches around Nelson into the mountains - snow and everything! We stopped en route at Dolomite Point, famous for the Pancake Rocks (which look like...well, pancakes stacked on top of each other funnily enough) and huge blow holes that send spray shooting up into the air at high tide. Unfortunately is was low tide whilst we were there, but we got the gist of it.

So onto Fox Glacier. We slightly abandoned the idea of a full glacier walk because we were defeated by the weather. On the 2nd day here, it poured all day long. We went to Lake Matheson, famous for the Reflection Walk where you can see Mount Cook perfectly mirrored in the lake's surface, but to be honest we couldn't see 5 metres in front of us through the rain, let alone any kind of reflection! We did the lake walk in about half the time it was supposed to take, sprinting through the rain and got UTTERLY soaked, but - resolutely and stereotypically English - we loved every minute and managed to keep smiling! We gave up on the rest of the day after that, and spent the afternoon drying off and watching another embarassing England loss to Australia or New Zealand in the cricket - can't remember, the defeats are all blending into one now.

But the next day dawned bright and beautiful. We decided to get going and onto Queenstown, but not before walking up to the terminal face of Fox Glacier. It's pretty incredible - a huge tongue of ice careering down the mountain, ending in jagged peaks falling into a fast-flowing glacial river dotted with huge lumps of ice. We saw the ice cave where an arch had stood until last week, and whilst we were there chunks of ice were still falling off, with huge booms that kept making us jump! It was pretty spectacular - I'd like to see it in winter, with snow over all the mountains. Going to have to save that for another trip! For now it's onwards to Queenstown, the self-pronounced Adventure Capital of the World. I intend to take advantage of that...