On our last day in Nelson we didn't do anything of note: we visited a second hand bookshop, went to the supermarket for supplies, watched a film at the hostel, visited the town 'cathedral' etc. In the evening we watched the opening ceremony and the first match of the 2011 Rugby World Cup at the hostel.

We moved on to Greymouth the next day, where most of the people on the bus went for a brewery tour. We tried about 8 different types of Monteith's beer plus their cider before getting to pour ourselves a glass of our favourite flavour. The tour guide briefly left the room about 5 minutes after this which of course resulted in hasty pouring of more glasses, people clambering over each other to get to the bar, heads under taps - that kind of thing. Suitably lubricated, we moved on to a local restaurant where we were fed and further watered. At 8.30 the England vs Argentina game kicked off and the restaurant pulled all the sofas out so we could all sit in front of the TV and cheer on our country. We won, but only just!

After Greymouth we drove to the small town of Franz Josef via the even smaller town of Ross, where I tried my hand at some gold panning and was rewarded with several teeny tiny but surprisingly heavy flakes of gold. We got to Franz Josef about midday and clambered over a huge ice glacier for the rest for the afternoon, as you do. This was great fun once we learnt to trust the steel crampons attached to our boots to keep us from sliding off the edge. At the bottom of the glacier it was quite dirty and grey but as we got higher up and moved off the main path the ice became incredibly beautiful: blue and transparent with tiny trapped bubbles all the way through. The glacier is about 4km high and we only made it 1km up so it must be stunning at the top. Shame we didn't have the $300 dollars each to do the heli hike!

It didn't matter though: we still managed to climb into ice caves, drink from a glacial waterfall and see some great scenery. We were also constantly sidestepping numerous steep crevices in the floor. Jak delighted in kicking rocks of ice down them just to see how long it took them to reach the bottom and, judging by the length of time it took for the noise to stop, they were pretty damn deep. That night we sneaked into the hostel next door to use their jacuzzi before laying flat out in the sauna at our hostel, struggling to breathe. Very relaxing :-)

Yesterday we made the long old drive to Queenstown and today we are on a day trip to Milford Sound. Jak is itching to get back to Queenstown because the England rugby team are staying up the road from us - we saw Martin Johnson walking down the street and apparently they have been partying in town...