Friday - we left Westport, Carters beach this morning to low cloud and drizzle that persisted all day. The original plan had been to meander down the coast to Greymouth but we decided to go further as the rain curtailed our activities for the day. We started off at the seal colony just down the road from the campsite where we saw New Zealand fur seals on the rocks. The babies aren't white like the ones we get at Donna nook, but chocolate brown - still cute though. The numbers were a lot fewer than Donna nook!! We also saw weka's one of NZ's native flightless birds - they were very friendly and had some chicks with them. We then went to see the pancake rocks and blowholes at Punakaiki, strange layered limestone formations on the coast and ended up at tourist information at Hokitika where we decided to press on to the franz josef glacier earlier than we intended. This meant a full day of driving but it was worth it as we neared our destination and the clouds began to lift. We are spending the night at the Rainforest retreat in Franz josef, by far the nicest serviced campsite we have visited. It has spa pool and saunas and we are parked in the rainforest - gorgeous! The man behind the local bar is from Hemel Hempstead and has put man city's last game against Newcastle on the tv for Eric while we eat our dinner! Eric very happy! Tomorrow we go in search of kiwis and glaciers - we may stay two nights it is so nice here! Merry Xmas to the air ambulance workers - in case you don't get chance to read this over Xmas. X