Left Greymouth for Franz Josef. Stopped off at Hokitika and bought a Pounamu or Greenstone/Jade Hei Tiki necklace. It represents ancestors and its spirital value increases with successive ownership. Figured it was a very New Zealandish thign to buy! Also did some gold panning in Ross. I managed to get some gold flakes and 2 pieces of Pounamu. The woman told us about this couple who spent 2 weeks panning for gold in the river and managed to get enough for 2 wedding rings, its was so romantic! ALso stopped off at a Bushmans Museum, which was hillarious!! Only cost $4 to get in and we watched a dvd about deer hunting and capturing which has to be one of the funniest things i've ever seen!! At one point they were jumping out of a hellicopter onto the deers to catch them!!All so saw some possums there, a goat kid with a triangle round its neck (very bizarre) and some possum nipple and willy warmers just for the banter lol!!

Decided to do the full day hike up the Franz Josef glacier so we went and paid for it and had our safety briefing. I managed to get a free tshirt for answering a question right! Also got a discount on the glacier hot pools so I went there in the afternoon. Also met James and Murray and Liza (a Scottish couple) there so it was nice to have folk to chat to. There were 3 pools to choose from, 36 degrees, 38 and 40 degrees. Spend most of our time in the coolest one but we did venture into the other ones as well. It was just so nice chilling out there, ended up spending about 3 hours in there!