A HARD DAY'S WORK NOT CLIMBING THE GLACIER

DAY 34: Franz Josef

Franz Josef is famous for its huge glacier, with the main activity on offer here being to hike it (or by helicopter if you can afford it). As Jen had already done this before, and me having no burning desire to do it, we opted for a 10km round walk from the Franz Josef Village to the foot of the glacier.

It was a nice walk which took us about three hours and gave us a bit of exercise. We'd made a cardinal sin of forgetting to pick up some water en route so we were getting quite thirsty, but luckily the sun had gone in and as we got closer to the glacier it was getting cooler - a bit like someone had left the freezer open. I'm sure this was mainly because the clouds had thickened rather than the glacier giving off a big chill.

On return, and after a steak and cheese pie, sausage roll and a cup of tea (and about seven of the amazing cookies we've discovered), we decided to book ourselves in to the hot tub as reward for all the 'effort' we'd made this morning.

Having fallen asleep we awoke to find out we'd missed our half hour slot by 25 minutes so I went to re-book. Not only was it great they let us have a new slot in the outdoor tub, it was even better nobody had left their fake tan in there.

We joined Josh, Lisa and Laura for dinner and Jen and I had a jug of beer each to wash it down with. Josh made us drool so much with stories of when he worked in an ice cream parlour in Port Douglas in Australia that we had to go and buy one from the reception shop. And damn fine it was too.