Our next day in Queenstown started early. We were on the road to Milford sound at 7:30am to make the 5 hour journey to our cruise. Our cruise took us around Milford sound for just over 2 hours, where we were taken right out to the Tasman sea, exploring the coves and waterfalls on the way. We were lucky enough not to get any rain in a place which gets over 7m a year!! This also meant we were able to see several sea lions playing in the sea and sat on rocks and on the return leg, we saw a school of bottle nose dolphins, which was sooo cool! We then had to make the 5 hour journey back, so it was a long day! The following day we had to check out of Queenstown and make our way to Frans Joseph. En route we stopped off in Wanaka, which had a place called Puzzling World, which broke up the journey and was a bit of fun, with the mind bending illusions. Eventually we made it to Frans Joseph, where our hostel greeted us with free soup, popcorn and an endless supply of videos - old school!!!

We had yet another early start for our full day of glacier climbing! Probably one of our best days yet! It started off pretty challenging, with the walk to the glacier taking us through a rainforest and 1/2 up a mountain. When we reached the glacier though, it was well worth it! We spent a good 5 hours trekking in our crampons through the ice, forcing our way through the tiniest of gaps. At one point we reached a crack which we had to climb up to using a rope one at a time, before sliding ourselves through it. It was tiny but our guide guaranteed us we'd all get through. So off Dave went, making it up to the crack, I began the climb up. Once I'd reached the top a panic struck Dave looked at me and explained quite calmly, how he was stuck. Convinced he wasn't I urged him to carry on, but he insisted he was, luckily for him he could move backwards, unlucky for me this meant I had to climb all the way back down, before having to climb back up to continue. It was very tight in places and a little scary, but both Dan and I made it through! We even came across an ice pool, which some stupid fools went for a dip in, but none of us could bare the thought of attempting it! Today we made our way from Frans Joseph to Westport, where we stopped off at pancake rocks and blow holes, having gone for an early walk around the base of mount cook this morning.