After Queenstown I had a LONG bus ride to Franz Josef glacier village (about 8 hours) but the journey was OK with good commentary along the way and photo opportunity stops. And stopped at a salmon farm for lunch. My seat belt kept jamming and found it difficult to see some of the sights from my reclined chair (especially as i was chuckling to myself trying to get up, it reminded me of Utters in Yoda's car in Scotland...). There was cool scenery along the way of beaches, sea, mountains and glaciers. Stayed at the glowworm cottages and had fish and chips for tea. Then a most inelegant ascent onto my bunkbed without a ladder....

The next day I did an AMAZING heli-hike on Franz Josef glacier - (after a few emergency toilet stops - the pressure of being away from facilities for 3 hours...) we got dressed up in waterproof coat, wooly socks and boots and had a cool 10 minute helicopter trip up to the glacier. There, Thomas our guide awaited us and showed us how to put our crampons on. Quite confusing...Then we had a practice walking around in them (remembering Krisi's advice about keeping your feet apart so they don't lock...) and within a few minutes i was clambering away like a proper mountain goat. The scenery was so cool, loads of crevises, caves and overhangs. Thomas kept skipping off exploring places we could go, poking his ice stick into areas to see if they collapsed into ice rivers.... scary! We got to this ice cave bit which we could go into if we liked, it was just like a low bridge. It was sheer ice, and i slipped down it like a penguin/large whale slipping into the sea. My knees weren't as gripping as my crampons apparently. Then we got a helicopter back. Amazing trip. Again, some of the poorer travellers just did a walk without the helicopter and they said the ice was quite dirty and wasn't as impressive. Glad i spent the extra for the higher up trip.

The next day - thought i would really hurt. I had a long trip to Nelson on a bus, and thought smugly i was doing well (except i had loads of sandfly bites, evil beasts). But we stopped off at Punakaiki where they have rocks which looks like pancakes and did a small walk there. There was only a small incline and i was walking like a cripple - downward walking was not good, yelping at each step! Another stop was at Bushmans Centre which had lots of roadkill food at the cafe including possum pie.... didn't try it!! They also had a field with a stag and goats and chamois (car-washing goats??)