Today we made the gruelling drive to Franz Josef Glacier which was very long and very hot. Our camp site made up for it though as it was set in the rainforest and even had a hot tub! We decided to try using our rear awning as it was a calm night and meant we could have a bigger bed. This was a bad idea however as some manner of creature made some awful sounds during the middle of the night before proceeding to jump onto our car. It scared the lights out of us as it was pitch black and we were scared it was going to come through the material! Let's just say after this we will not be having the awning out again.

In the morning we were excited for our glacier trip which included a helicopter flight. We had a couple of hours to kill before the trip so we looked around the local area. When it finally came to our trip we were told that it would not be going ahead as Cyclone Luci was coming our way and meant that although it was a lovely sunny day there were high winds on the glacier which prevented the helicopter from landing. Considering we had no clue that there was a cyclone coming towards us this came as a bit of a shock and was a great disappointment as this was our only chance for us to go up into a glacier. We did decide however to take a walk up to the base of the glacier which meant we could see it up close but not explore it.

We decided to depart Franz Josef as we had seen all it had to offer and decided to drive to Hokitika for the evening before the cyclone hit properly.