We decided to break the journey from Abel Tasman down to Franz Josef Glacier at a DOC campsite just outside Hokitika on the west coast, at Lake Kaniere. On the way down there, we stopped off at Pancake Rocks - a natural phenomenon caused by the way the sea erodes the rocks, forming them into stacks which look like piles of pancakes - and reminding me of the pancakes with bacon, banana and maple syrup we had courtesy of Kate T - yum yum yummy! It's called Punakaiki in Maori and is a major tour bus pit-stop... so this is where everyone's been hiding - the roads are getting less and less populated the further south we go, with amazing wild coastal landscape very beautiful.

Unfortunately we'd missed high tide and it was a beautiful day. The blow holes are at their most dramatic on stormy days at high tide. Literally the only time this trip we'd actively wished for rubbish weather!

Lake Kaniere was a lovely stop despite a woman camped behind us who literally did not stop talking between us getting there around 4pm, and going to bed around 10pm.

Then zoomed down to Franz Josef Glacier, passing through Pukekura and the "Puke Pub" at the side of the road. Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers we quickly learnt are 2 of over 3,000 glaciers on the south island - a FACT probably to be found in Al McDonald's big book of facts... These ones are particularly special as they are some of the few on the planet to extend down to rainforest (Perito Moreno in Argentina being another one - which our Glacier guide was very excited that we'd visited already). We spent the afternoon at Fox Glacier, having decided to stay and do the glacier walk on Franz Josef. had a wee ramble up to the front of the Fox Glacier, and were almost more amazed at the incredible sheer rock face of the cliffs in the car park. Also very amazed at one woman's choice of leopard print skirt and chanel-style quilted pumps to walk to the glacier. haute couture isn't really appreciated out here love.

We also had a quick check out of Lake Matheson where we met the estate-car living London girls again, who'd been moved on the previous night around midnight - didn't sound very pleasant and we were left asking ourselves where they pooed?? a step too far even on our budget.... We decided to give the lake walk a miss as it had clouded over, and the main reason for doing the walk was to see the reflection of Mount Cook in the lake.

We'd rapidly scaled up from a half to a full day glacier trek - despite the budget squeaking in protest, and weren't disappointed the next day. Amazing day on the ice. We hiked up through the rainforest at the start, and then 6 hours on the glacier itself. We jumped into group 1 to avoid the inevitable dawdlers - A-Team all round. The experience was a lot more atmospheric than the Argentina walk. we were walking up the glacier, amongst the massive waves and was pretty physical stuff, although i'm not convinced our guide needed to use his ice axe quite as much as he did - macho Mancunian...!

We found out there are no walking trails between the glacier side and Mount cook region which will be our last stop in the south island. It's literally mountaineer up one mountain and rock-climb / abseil down the next - major mountaineering country. I can now understand why kiwis become world class mountaineers - several were mentioned in my book, "life and death on the world's most dangerous mountain", my light reading while we were doing the base camp trek in nepal...

Generally there a lot fewer people on the road down here and much less aggressive driving. Probably down to the fact that almost every 3rd car is a campervan. Have got used to manoeuvering the campervan up, down and around the hairpin bends as they seem incapable of building a straight road over here. Locals are definitely pro-hunt - you wouldn't want to be an animal rights activist down here, although some parts have been surprisingly arty this far.