The next day we continued our way down the coast, heading for the glaciers! We stopped at Hokitika and looked in some of the famous jade stone factories, before taking a small detour to the Hokitika Gorge where there is a swing bridge. It was a short walk from the car park to the swing bridge which was over the most amazing turquoise water. It was so beautiful, flowing next to the grey rocks and green mountains. We continued the drive, another 100km towards Franz Josef, stopping at the DOC site just 13km away from the center of town. This is the first DOC site we have stayed in, other times it has been holiday parks or hostel car parks. It was more basic than what we were used too but was situated on the bank of Lake Mapourika with pretty views.

We got up the next morning, a) because we wanted to try and avoid the warden so we didn't have to pay the camp fees, and b) because we didn't want to use the toilet so we went to some in town. We arrived at Franz Josef and went to the guide shop to look at the different tours offered. We were not sure whether to do one or not, so went to look how much of the glacier you could see on your own. We walked the hour and half to the glacier front. New Zealand is pretty unique in the sense that the glaciers on the west coast are surrounded by rainforest. The glacier was pretty big running in between two mountains, but we decided that we would do a tour to walk on it. We went back to the tour hut, however by the time we had got back the half day tour had sold out. Gutted! We were then unsure what to do for the day. We decided to go down the road to Fox Glacier to see if it was possible to do a similar tour there. It worked out quite well as they had a similar tour on the Fox Glacier but it was cheaper, always a bonus! We had a couple of hours to kill before the tour started, so went to visit Lake Mathelson, famous for it's reflections. The lake was gorgeous and the reflections were so clear. Unfortunately clouds were covering Mount Cook but the view was still impressive. We walked around the lake, before heading back to Fox.

Whilst waiting in the car, it started to pour with rain and both of us started to dread our 4 hour tour of the glacier. Luckily when we were getting kitted out with our boots and waterproofs the rain stopped and the clouds started to clear. The walk was about an hour from the car park to the glacier. Fox glacier starts at Mount Tasman and is 13km long. We climbed up a steep hill to the side of the glacier before putting on our crampons and venturing on the ice. We walked through gaps on the ice before individually going down to an ice tunnel, where the ice was really blue and pretty. Most of the ice on the top of the glacier had lots of rocks in with it, from where the glacier had trapped them on it's route down the mountain. Margaret, our guide, showed us some other parts of the glacier and was very knowledgeable about it. We were lucky that it only started to rain as we were walking back to the coach. After the tour we hit the road again towards Wonaka, seeing some incredible views over Lake Hawea as the sun set.