We headed off down the West coast following our Abel Tasman 'tramp', as the kiwis call them, taking in a night in humdrum Greymouth after using our camper 'kitchen' for only the second time to cook a sublime spaghetti bolognaise. Waking up for the umpteenth time to a freezing van, we quickly carried on down to the world famous Franz Josef Glacier and booked in for a hike the following day.

Though this is supposed to be 'off season', near a hundred people turned up with us to don our hiking gear and catch the bus up the glacier's mountain to start the seven hour hike. We were then divided up by the guides into four groups according to speed; we decided to take it easy at the back, not being long after our Tongariro Crossing.

If anything, the route to the foot of the glacier was surprisingly just as arduous as the real thing but we soon found ourselves clipping the cramp-ons to our boots and continuing up into the icy crevisces, closely following our guide, who would cut steps into the ice with his pick-axe for us to follow and admire.

The pictures show you just how phenomenal the whole scene looked as we scaled the snow and ice, with the highlight of the day undoubtedly being the cave which opened up into an ice staircase for us to climb out of and then overlook a huge crevisce, temporarily created by the glacier's continual advance.

Although the return journey back to the bus was spoiled slightly by a torrential downpour, we eventually made it back to our campsite for a a hard earned shower before dinner. Later that evening we headed to the nearest pub to take in the Super 14 rugby final and watch NZ's premier team, the Canterbury Crusaders, along with most of the locals. A great way to end a top day.

Kev