After our night at the holiday park in Hokitika, we drove into town to have a look around. It was a small place with not a lot going on, but nice all the same, with wide quiet streets and lots of jade (or pounamu) outlets. We had a look at the beach which was being pounded by the grey Pacific waves, before carrying on down the west coast.

Our drive that day took us south before moving inland a bit. The clear, bright weather was great for driving, and we enjoyed the scenery as the sea on our right gave way to green fields and the steep slopes of rainforest on our left gradually gave us more and more glimpses of the sharp, snow-dusted peaks of the Southern Alps through gaps as we drove.

The road passed a number of really pretty lakes as we made our way towards Glacier Country, one of which we stopped at for lunch and had a lark around on the jetty.

Eventually after climbing for some time, heading further and further into the mountains, we arrived in Fanz Josef village, the small settlement in the valley at the base of some awesome alpine peaks and the glacier which gives the town its name.

Driving up the main street, we were surrounded by towering mountains, the rocky peaks above the rainforest shrouded in cloud. Our first stop was the local iSite information building where we booked tickets for a glacier hike the following day, which came with free tickets to the local hot pools.

With our plans for the next day sorted, we made our way to a holiday park, the Rainforest Retreat, and got the van parked. After a fairly long drive we were keen to have a wander around so walked back into town and checked out the souvenir shops before stopping for a beer at happy hour at a local bar.

After that we spent the rest of the evening around the holiday park, trying to get a space in the kitchen to cook in between half the population of Korea having some massive cooking fest, which was a bit of a shock after having had the previous holiday parks pretty much to ourselves.

After a bit of reading in the van following dinner, we got a good night's sleep, deciding to have a longish lie as we weren't going on our glacier hike until 1230.

After said long lie we got up, got breakfast, then made our way to the glacier guide centre in town, where we were kitted out with all our warm and dry kit, including boots and crampons.

After that it was onto the bus for a short shuttle ride up to the glacier car park followed by a trek through the rainforest until we emerged on the huge moraine field and got our first proper look at the Franz Josef glacier. The glacier was impressive, snaking some 11 km from the flat, boulder strewn moraine field up the sheer-sided valley it had gouged out to the snowy peaks of the alps.

Our guides took us across the moraine, alongside the cloudy blue river flowing out from a gaping hole in the snout of the glacier, then onto the glacier itself. Although it looked like we were walking on huge piles of stone at first, we were actually on the ice, buried a metre or so under rock which had fallen onto the glacier following flooding some 8 years before and had gradually made its way down the ice.

After zig-zagging up the steep gravelly slopes we stopped to put on our crampons before moving onto the ice proper. Our guide took us through an incredible landscape of jagged ice jutting in every direction and plunging into deep blue crevasses all around us. That appearance of that particular part of the glacier was a result of forces pushing and pulling the ice in different directions, resulting in it splitting and forming the incredible alien scene which we made our way through.

We emerged from the jagged peaks of ice onto a smoother, undulating surface of the glacier, still making our way mainly by following steps which had been cut into the ice using chainsaws and picks, as we explored some more.

We got the chance to climb into a pocket of incredible blue ice and look into air bubbles under the surface of the ice, as well as climbing into crevasses for some photo opportunities, all the while surrounded by the sheer cliffs of the glacial valley, with waterfalls pouring down, and the impressive snowy peaks far above.

After some time wandering around on the glacier's surface, it was time to make our way back, retracing our footsteps to the bus and returning to town. On the hike we'd gotten speaking to a really nice couple from Ireland, Marcus and Diane so we agreed to meet them at the bar for a beer after our adventure.

We ended up getting an excellent meal in the bar, The Landing, and had a beer before going back to our respective holiday parks and grabbing our swimmers for the hot pools. Rendezvous-ing again at the hot pools, just across the road from our holiday parks, we enjoyed soaking our weary muscles in the heated pools, under a canopy of rainforest plants.

After warming up and wrinkling up sufficiently, we managed to drag ourselves out of the pools into the freezing night air and, once changed, made our way to the bar at our holiday park for a nightcap, managing successfully to avoid the members of the Contiki tour which had just turned up.

The next day it was time to move on again, so after carrying out our upgraded breakfast routine, involving boiled eggs, and helping some hapless British guys in the van next to us try to get their van started, we left the park and carried on south.

Our next stop was Lake Matheson. Here, we took a short walk to the lakeside where we got an incredible view of the Southern Alps, including Aoraki (Mount Cook) reflected in the perfectly flat waters of the lake. The weather was perfect with clear blue skies and only the odd cloud clinging to the peaks and we hung around for a bit just enjoying the scenery before getting back on the road.

We passed Fox glacier, making a small detour to drive up to a viewpoint of the glacier before carrying on south, making our way back towards the coast. We stopped for lunch at Knight's Point, an overlook high above the Pacific with great views of sea cliffs and the ocean.

The road carried on roughly down the coast until Haast, when it veered inland and we found ourselves heading back into the mountains, climbing up through more fantastic rainforest through valleys filled with waterfalls, then through the Haast pass.

From here we descended into an incredible valley of golden grassland, surrounded by mountains. Carrying on south, the valley was soon filled by the incredible Lake Wanaka. The scenery here was some of the most beatiful we had seen so far in New Zealand, and we loved the drive down the eastern side of the lake, which only got better as we crossed a saddle between some hills and descended to even more incredible views as we drove down to, then along the side of Lake Hawea.

After stopping numerous times for photos around the lakes we carried on, eventually reaching the town of Wanaka as it was getting dark. After some deliberation we decided not to stop in Wanaka and carried on through the dark, driving the straight and fast road south, before passing through a winding canyon road and eventually in the evening ending up in Queenstown.