We thought it was about time you met Lucy! As you can see she is small and green but a mean machine! She is mischievous and cheeky and doing a grand job!

Another driving day... Just over 8 hours in all of beautiful roads and gorgeous scenery and beautiful sunshine!

Out of Kaikoura on what turned out to be a beautiful calm day, one suitable for boat trips! If only we had one more day but we had to cross over the mountains to the West Coast today, the whole width of the country. We were expecting this to be a treacherous drive by peoples reactions when we said we were driving that route.... but it was one if the most chilled, flowing drive yet.

By mid-morning we were well past Hanmer Springs on our way over the Lewis Pass, one of three roads to traverse the country. Arthurs pass we will cross on the Transalpine railway, and the Haast Pass we tackle in a few days....

We stopped at windy point, which was the main entrance to the Harper Pass track. (this looked like a gruelling multiple-day climb and tramp) Shortly after we stopped at Sylvia Flats next to the Lewis River and took the photo with The Devils Rampart mountain in the background.

After quick refreshment we passed Springs Junction and passed all the gold mines. We grabbed lunch in Reefton by the Inangahua river. It was a brown/gold colour, probably run off from all the mines.

We stopped at Slab Hut creak where you were allowed to pan for Gold. We gave it a beginners go, found one teeny shiny rock before succumbing to the flies that were biting our ankles!! I counted 8 bites in a space of 4 minutes!! Jo squashed a fly on her leg in the car and it had obviously had a good feed as it spurted blood out as it popped!!

The road confined onto Greymouth... The meeting of the Little Grey and the the Big Grey river. We passed the mine that recently exploded too. We stopped for Lucy's juice and treated ourselves to Ice Cream. Mine was Hokey Pokey flavour covered in chocolate filled with honeycomb pieces, Jo went for the Calipo!

The road continued down the west coast, almost adjacent to the Tasman sea. We also had some strange experiences with train lines... Sharing the same one lane bridge!! And the tracks going through the centre of the roundabout?!

Made it to Franz Josef where the cloud was settled over the glacier, hopefully our Heli-hike will go ahead tomorrow.... Checked into Chateaux Franz hostel and have a small room with bunk beds under the TV room where perhaps quite aptly they are watching The Lord of the Rings... In here you can feel every word as the sound vibrates!!

Had another super human sized portion for dinner, couldn't manage all of it but was very nice, checked out another kiwi reserve that was closing, so will prob go back tomorrow... Walked up to St James church, which is said that the view from the altar window lines directly with the glacier... unfortunately it was closed so we couldn't get in, and it was cloudy. Maybe tomorrow :-)

So we head to Fox glacier in the morning for our tour, then plan to come back to Franz Josef to do the glacial valley walk.

It's midnight now and this hostel is a nightmare! It's a "strict" quiet policy from 11pm and we were trapped in our room by around 15 noisy Germans?! Outside in the communal area, direct route to the toilet! They were so noisy and we were so tired that it just ended up being really unpleasant. Gave them until about 23.15 before heading out to ask if they would mind keeping the noise down... They didn't!! And have moved from outside our room to now in the TV room above our room! In the morning I am going straight to reception to ask to be moved out if this pokey little room!! Eeugh!!!