With trepidation we opened the curtain as the morning alarm went off, hoping for clear skies so that we could do the heli hike on our last day before we had to leave for the next leg of our journey. Cloudy, but no rain, so we were still nervous as we entered the office at 9:15.

A few minutes later we got the great news that the trip was confirmed and we started getting kitted out with climbing boots, all-weather coats and crampons.

The flight there was amazing, with several roller coaster-esque turns to bring us as close to the ice as possible. The time on the ice was awesome, like an alien landscape of crevasses, blue ice and huge blocks of ice that looked like they were about to fall at any moment.

After another short flight back, we headed straight out on the road up to Hokitika and Greymouth. We arrived in Hokitika at 3pm, needing to find somewhere to stay and then get the car back to Greymouth (some 40km away) by 4pm.

Miraculously we made it, but after all that, the Europcar rep had gone home for the day and Dean had to call her mobile phone to avoid being charged an extra day.

Dean got a taxi shuttle back to Hokitika and joined up with Julie on the beach. We had dinner at the Cafe de Paris - another lovely meal, before returning to our motel near the airport for our early flight the next morning.

Loosely on the way back, we visited the glow-worm dell just as darkness fell and one by one saw the little critters do what they're famous for, creating hundreds of points of light in the darkness.