Blenheim-Murchision-Westport-Greymouth-FRANZ JOSEF!

We had a good fair well from Blenheim last week as Ram (our boss!) decided to give us a night out, all bought and paid for which was very nice of him! Hopefully that will be the end of the fruit picking as the weather has changed so quickly and it is now freezing cold!!!

When we left Blenheim we headed across towards Westport on the West Coast via Nelson Lakes National Park. We had wanted to stop here for a night but it seemed that the weather had different plans and so unfortunately we couldn't due to rain. (Well, we could but tramping, as the Kiwi's like to call it, isn't much fun when your cold and wet!). We stopped for a night in Murchison and by the moring the rain had eased off a little so we stopped at the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge, the longest swing bridge in NZ. It was pretty scary walking across a bridge that moves when you can see right down into the gorge beneath your feet! And the swing bridge obviously wasn't enough for Neil and i as we found ourselves hurtling back across the gorge on a flying fox when we were offered it half price!!!

After the Buller Gorge we drove on to Pancake Rocks. These were quite impressive stacks of rocks (looking like stacks of pancakes...) jutting from the sea. We did a loop walk and the costal scenery was nice, shame about the evil looking clouds that were above us!

By the time we arrived in Greymouth, the weather was still pretty grim and so we decided to do a tour of the Monteith's Brewery. The tour was quite fascinating, however the beer was better! We sampled 7 different beers and then we were given the chance to go behind the bar and pour our favourite, just for good measure! No wonder we have a reputation for liking beer as a group of English guys took the biscuit a bit and kept going back for more when the tour guide had left the room!!

Franz Josef

On Wednesday afternoon we arrived at Franz Josef Glacier and decided to go all out and book a Heli-Hike for the next day. Well, it's not everyday you get to fly in a chopper and walk on a glacier is it? The trip was for 12.30 the next day and we were very excited!

When we woke up on Thursday morning, the weather seemed perfect and so we made our way to the Glacier Guides office for 11.30am. We checked in, paid our money and then had to be weighed for the chopper. We were then taken across the road to the helicpoter pad and given socks, boots and coats, then instructed to wait at the back of the cabin. 5 minutes later when the girl came round and told us that our trip had been CANCELLED (!) due to too much cloud we thought she was joking. Unfortunately she wasn't and we had to hand back eveything we had been given and go back to the office with our bottom lips out!!! We were very lucky to grab the last three spots on the next trip (they only do 3 a day) which was for that afternoon but it was with no garentee that the clouds would move. We went back to the campsite to get some lunch and keep an eye on the cloud covering the glacier and a few hours later we headed back into town with no expectations of going anywhere as the cloud still seemed to be sitting in the same place! We arrived at the ofice and went through the same proceedures as earlier but this time we were given gloves, hats and a safety briefing so it was looking a little more promising! After about 10 minutes of waiting around we were, to our surprise, taken to a helicpoter. To us, the cloud looked exactly the same and Rachel had begun to worry that we might get stuck on the glacier! Once we were in the chopper and seat belts and headsets on, we set off. It was surreal being in a chopper and it went alot slower than i expected. The scenery was awsome and it was such a good experience that i can't really explain! We landed on the glacier about 10 minutes later and were introduced to our guide, Julia. She gave us some crampons that we had to attach to our boots, these were really cool spikes that stopped us slipping on the snow. The glacier was such an awsome sight, looking at the photos would be better than me trying to explain it! We walked for 2 hours and passed loads of crevaces and caves. The ice was so white and in some areas, blue. At one point Julia had to attach a rope to the ice so that we could get down into cave that she had found. The experience, helicpoter and all was soooo good and definately one of the best things we have done so far.