Had a fabulous few days in Franz Josef and Wanaka. Went on our glacier hike on Wednesday and it was amazing. However we had really bad weather, hail, rain, thunder lightning but it was still fun getting very cold and wet and climbing on ice. The next day we set off early for Wanaka paqssing through Haast pass where the bus got stuck in the snow. Had to put the snow chains on in order to get up the hill hehe! Eventually arrived and wondered along the lake taking in the fantastic view, booked our skiing trip, the woman telling us we had picked the best day to go so far this year yippee!, and had an early night. Set off early for Treble cone (the ski fields we had chosen) and got kitted out with boots and skis. Headed up to the nursery slope for a gentle ease back in to skiing - its been a while for both of us. The nursery slope was still quite steep and so we had a practice and then went along for a referesher lesson. Our instructor James perfected our turning technique and then in the afternoon we let loose on the slopes on our own. Did a few of the easy and intermediate runs but i'd say they were still quite difficult due to the moutain being so steep. I only fell over once on my last run down quite spectacularly and Mary fell 3 times one of which took her a long time to get her ski back on! Had so much fun and Mary coincidently met her friend from Uni who is doing a ski season out there but Mary thought she was doing it in Queenstown. Met Charlie (mary's friend) for drinks in the evening at Red Rock Cafe which was nice. We then had a much needed lie in this morning and went down to a cafe by the lake and wrote lots of postcards. Walked along the lake again and sat in the beautiful sunshine. In the afternoon we got the bus to Queenstown. So, currently in Queenstown staying in lodge its rather busy here due to skiing. Going to go on the Gondola tomorrow and do some luging. Then i'm heading to Milford Sound on Monday and leave Mary sniff sniff on Tuesday for Christchurch.