Hi,

We arrived in Frans Josef after 6 hours of driving which apart from the views, was inanely boring due to the lack of radio coverage in New Zealand....! We were pretty lucky as there were only two spaces left on the full day glacier adventure (8 hours) which was cool. After some soup on the main road it was off to bed with the fingers crossed that we didn't get caught as we were right in town.

It was an early start and to register and collect the gloves, hut, over-trousers, boots, crampons and waterproof coat that they provided. Even if I do say it myself, I was lookin good...! It wasn't long before we were off in the bus that stunk of mold to the glacier itself.

Once we were there it was a short walk through the bush into a clearing and there it was. A massive great ice cube between the mountains. The guide was giving us some back ground and interesting geological nuggets about glacier and what not and then asked us how far we thought the glacier was away. I thought it was about 400m away. I was astonished when he said it was over two kilometers away...! It was a much bigger ice cube than I thought it was and it now time for the nerd bit.........

Just in case you didn't know, Franz Josef is the steepest guided glacier walk in the world and consists of 15 billion tons of ice. That's spread over 11km and is a whopping 80m deep. Due to the fact that it is growing from the top by 3-5m a day, also means that it is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. Lesson over....!

We completed the walk over to the glacier and put on our crampons and split into smaller groups. We were in Brad's group. Brad was ex army and stood there in his short and I mean short shorts and had a pick axe in his hands. Within five minutes he had said the words, mate, aye, sweet as and bro about a million times, it was going to be an interesting day. He was a top bloke with a really dry sense of humour which made me laugh.

The day on the ice was quality. Hard going in places and there were a couple of really tight squeezes that weren't for the faint hearted. We had covered 15km walking during the day in total, 10 kilometers on the ice and it got really cold too, especially your feet that were soaking wet all day...! It had been a top day and it was definitely time to turn on the charm for a shower...

Cheekily, we'd gotten friendly with an Irish girl, Veronica in our group and she had agreed to let us use her shower in the hostel and so after sneaking past reception, we were in a warm room, complete with a cup of tea AND a shower...what more could we want?! Just then, two lads walked in with a couple of bottles of red wine! After showers, the five of us sat chatting around the table and helped the lads with their wine, only to notice that it was Happy Hour at the pub just as we'd finished the last gulp of vino - well just look at that!! Off to the pub to sample the $3 pints. Just as good as I'd imagined! At some stage in the wee hours, we made it back to Arthur and bedded down. There was even a lay-in opportunity the following day as the Council workers didn't appear to be chasing us in this town. Result!

It was Friday the 13th and we were going to head to Christchurch via Arthur's Pass. Would you believe it - our fan and altenator belts gave way - @#/!. I wasn't sure what was up at the time but the engine was about to over heat and there was a slight strangling noise from the engine. Luckly we rolled up at the next town and there was a garage. The mechanic was a complete arse and verbally abused Becki when she just asked for some advise. After Becki told him to stick it and walked off, he decided to help out. We were back on the open road in 40 minutes.

Like the rest of the South Island, Arthur Pass was stunning.

Bye for now

Miffy x x x