Oh. My. God. Well... Today we spend the morning driving to Franz Joseph where on the way we stopped to check out a greenstone factory (special mauri stone) and some gold mining in Ross. We also tasted... POSSUM PIE! I know its sounds awful but I have to admit it was actually quite tasty! It was from the only cafe in the world whih has a license to sell them! Anyway down to the most important bit... we arrived in Franz Joseph at about 12ish in time for - THE GLACIER! We dumped our stuff at our hostel and arrived at the center. The gave us the whole if-you-die-its-not-our-fault talk and showed us some really scary pictures of what we were to come across. They took us to get changed into our gear; seriously heavy boots, awful jacket, waterproof trousers and tallons (sp? the spikes to wear on your boots) - just my style as you can imagine. By this time I was begining to think 'what on earth have you let yourself in for you idiot!' but knew I couldnt back out now and I was determined to do it. So, we started out 'hike'. The first part was through the rainforest and lasted about 30mins which I thought was bad enough (!) and then we got to the rocks which was also a challenge in itself. By now we could see the glacier ahead of us and I have to admit it was pretty awesome. Then, they taught us how to put our tallons on and the ice hiking began! It was really tricky having to be extra cautious with every step you took as obviously it was seriously slippy etc... and you had to be carefull not to get your tallons caught (which I managed to do twice!) Half way through they took us over this bridge - I nearly fainted when I saw it - I could have made a sturdier bridge when I was 6 months old. It was a ladder stuck in the ice with a wobbly piece of wood layed on it, with a rope either side and wait for it... ABOUT A 50 FOOT DROP UNDERNEATH! Anyway, needless to say I made it over the bridge and up to the glacier and was very proud of my self indeed. It was absolutely freezing, I was in pain, but it was definatly worth it, being surrounded by clear, blue ice was fantastic and a true "once in a lifetime thing". As soon as we had made it back down (the whole thing lasted 4.5 hours - yes you did read that right) I went back to the hostel and CRASHED! All in all a very successful day in Franz Joseph.