Tuesday 5th May-

We eventually got to do our heli-hike on Friday morning. We went to the office at 10.15 and the weather was sunny with blue skies. We headed to a little hut over the road to get changed into our gear- big boots and socks, gloves and a jacket. We were split into 4 groups of 6 and got helicopters up to the top of the glacier- we got some good views out of the window. Once on the glacier we were given crampons (the matal spike things) for our boots and bumbags forour stuff. We also got little walking stick things to help us keep our balance on the steep parts. It was hard to get used to walking on the ice and for a while we all looked like Bambi. We followed our guide around for about 2 hours and saw some coll things. The man took about 20 minutes smashing some ice to make a tunnel through a water hole thing, but it was worth the wait. It was really amazing up there, like being in another world. There were some scary sounds as well as the glacier cracked and creaked and moved. We then took the helicopter back down to the bottom. We didn't do much else for the rest of our time in Franz Josef- we watched some films in the common room and one night we triend the hostels free vegetable soup, which was quite nice.
We left early on Sunday morning on the bus to Queenstown, although we got off in Wanaka. On the way we stopped at the Mirror Lake to get some photos, but it was a bit too foggy and the water a bit too ripply to get good reflections. We had another stop to look at Lake Wanaka. Wanaka was a very small town but it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful. On Monday we went to Puzzling World. First we looked around the illusion rooms- there was a room full of 3D hollogram pictures, a room of faces that semed to follow you around, a room that made you look like a giant at one end and really tiny at the other, and a room that was all wonky and appeared to defy gravity. We then had some lunch and played with some puzzles that were on the tables. Then we went into the 2 storey maze- you had to find all 4 corners, but it took us longest to find our way out of the maze! It was all good fun.

Saturday 9th May-

On Tuesday we went to Queenstown. It is a lot smaller than we expected. We had 4 nights there. We spent one day looking around the shops for some new trainers for Chris, as his have falled apart, but there were just expensive ski-wear type shops. That night we went out to the bars. We started off in World Bar. It was 'teapot happy hour' so we bought 2 of them (they served cocktails in teapots). Next we went to Buffalo Bar as we had some 2-4-1 drink vouchers. There was a live band playing there and we also saw some people we knew from the Magic bus. It was a good night.
The next day we got the cable cars up the mountain to get some good views of the town and surrounding mountains and lakes. It started snowing when we were up there so we didn't stay too long. After that we went to an indoor mini-golf place. It was amazing- every hole was a different scene with moving parts and noises and different routes the balls could go down (Helen's usually went the longest way). On the last hole the theme was 'candy shop' and after potting your ball a free chuppachup lolly fell out of the little sweet factory!
The next day we spent in STA travel to try and sort out our South Africa safaris. The longer trips we wanted to do turned out to be too expensive so now we think we'll do a 4 day Kruger safari, fly to Port Elizabeth, then get a 7day Baz Bus pass to Cape Town.
Today we got to Dunedin. We've bought Chris some new trainers and went for a nice roast dinner at a pub.