We spent the night at great expense in the caravan park at Franz Josef and made good use of all facilites!! The next am , we were up early for our quick heliflight up the glacier and our walk on the ice, only to find that it was cancelled due to weather! We were gutted but put ourselves on standby for the nexty one 2hrs later. We decided to drive to the base of the glacier and do the base walk to use up some time. It was far dirtier than we thought but still very interesting. We then presented ourselves for the next tour - booked up this time. We do not give up easily when we are on a mission, so decided to try once more at 2.45pm! We had lunch and felt very sleepy, so put the alarm on and had a power nap!! We woke with a start and this time it was Jan's job to present herself for the big let down. But SURPRISE SURPRISE, we were on! Pam had gone back to sleep by this time, so with a major effort, we joined the tour 5mins later! We got kitted out in our thick socks, boots and jackets but decided to go in shorts (everyone else put on waterpoof trousers!) We were hardy but actually wanted to get our legs brown! We were then flown up in helicopter and bi-passed all the dirty snow. We were slithering all over the ice until we were given our crampons. It was amazing on the glacier, much bluer in colour and more ridged than we thought. We were taken through caves just like igloos and jan managed to turn a somersault through the one we had to crawl through! It was great fun! We were then getting very confident on the ice and as jan passed camera to Pam, we both ended up flat out on the ice upside down with everyone flashing their cameras at us. Very embarrassing but we couldn't get up for laughing. Our young guide had to haul us up but was pleased that we weren't crying!

After a great time on the glacier, we then headed through Arthur's pass and back to Christchurch , for another overhaul and supplies from our friendly Explore guys.