Leaving the "hotel" the morning after the fancy dress party was pretty rough as we'd all had a heavy night, but were excited to get to Franz Josef to hike the glacier. We arrived and were told that we'd be able to get up there that afternoon, so we got kitted up, within 5 minutes before we got on the helicopter the pilots called it off due to low cloud cover! We were gutted.

Unfortunately we couldn't hike from the bottom as the glacier was too unstable in its form of retreat so we had to be taken up by helicopter. Instead we decided to kayak across Lake Mapourika (a glacial lake) to enjoy the views of the southern alps, even if thy we're covered in clouds. The trip was over 3hours, totalling at 7km. I was exhausted, but it was good fun.

The next day it rained constantly and again we couldn't go up the glacier, instead I relaxed all day and went to the glacial hot pools in the evening. It was a shame we didn't get to do the hike, but I was disinclined to stay for longer, as there was no guarantee we would get up there with the weather being so hit and miss.