After breakfast we took a walk to the lower end of the glacier to admire the view, in itself an awe-inspiring sight. Thinking that it was definitely time for a bit of exercise we had considered doing a half day guided glacier hike today, However, when we saw an advertisement for a heli-hike which whisks you high up onto the glacier and gives you the opportunity to explore the ice formations up there then our imaginations took flight and we decided that this was t...

It was sad to say goodbye to our beautiful Azur Lodge where we have spent the past four nights but it was time to get back on the road. We picked up the car but were a bit slow getting started and finally headed out of town at about 1 o'clock. We knew we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us and the first section took us up over the Crown Range to the lakeside town of Wanaka. What we hadn't bargained for was scary hairpin bends, very steep drops off the side of the road...