This morning we had to get up early to go to the glacier. Some of our group booked a helicopter trip up the glacier, so that they could visit a more unspoiled part of the glacier. I did not do this, mostly from a financial perspective, and besides I had pre-booked this walk, so decided not to change this.

In a small bus we headed for the end of the glacier and after that had to hike for 1 to 1,5 hours to reach the glacier itself. This took so long, since we had to go up in the temperate rainforest to reach the top of the glacier. You cannot start climbing the glacier from the front since this is a very instable part due to the continuous movements of the ice. This might seem unclear, but once I upload the pictures of the glacier it will most likely become clearer.

After we arrived at the site where we would go on the glacier, we saw some Kea's. This are pretty big parrot-like birds, and they were really cool and curious (so they came closeby to take a look at our bags..). Before venturing on the ice we put clampons (= metal spikes) under our shoesso that we had more grip on the ice.

The walk was amazing, and the views we had on the glacier were really marvellous; I think everybody really enjoyed it.

After returning we got ready for a long busride via Franz Joseph and mirror-lake where we had a short photo-stop an then continued on to Flockhill for the night. This evening we had a theme-party (the theme was pyjama), so we had dinner and drinks in our pyjama's! This lead to some funny pictures!It was a good opportunity, because this was more or less the last night with the entire group. In Christchurch, our next destination the majority of our group members would have finished their trip and leave the group.

After dinner we did some cool games and it was all fun!