We have travelled on from Nelson down the west coast to Queenstown, the activity centre of South Island. As you will see the weather is still gorgeous and the sun is still shining on us.

We have just added some photos but unfortunately we uploaded more than intended thinking that we could delete some before sending it on the blog. This was not the case so hope you don't mind looking at them all, will try and do better next time - we are after all in holiday mode!!

The drive down the west coast was not so interesting but it gave us time to relax. We stayed over in Greymouth due to the distance to be covered as there is no other reason to visit this place. The scenic railway from Christchurch across the mountains terminates here but returns the same day after about an hours stop which says it all.

The weather had been wet before we got to Franz Joseph in fact the day we arrived no helicopters had flown. We went for a walk in the morning into the forest by the side of the town. Tony was confident that we were going to be able to do this walk and be back in time to have dinner and then go off for our helicopter hike. Thea had real misgivings and serious doubts about this when we reached the first creek. As there had been so much rain the water was gushing much faster than usual and the creek was quite difficult to cross, however, Thea found a way without us getting our feet wet. Two more creeks, two lost paths because of the river gushing wider than normal and we found our suspension bridge across the river and onto the main road, much to the relief of both of us. We managed to get back just in time to have a bowl of soup (we do live well out here!) before going for our heli hike.

Franz Joseph glacier was amazing we did the helicopter hike as suggested by Angela who did the same trip herself. You will see by the photos that the ride up and down was breathtaking and the actual glacier itself was unbelievable in size, colour, shape and temperature. Once we had put the crampons on we found it quite easy walking on the ice. We were walking on the ice for 2 hours which was pretty taxing.

Another long trip down to Queenstown but a nice stop at Wanaka Lake where some did sky diving. We went to the airport to pick them up, Irish party, one lad was saying it was a doddle then he came up on a screen showing him on the way up in the plane it didn't look a doodle. The Irish party then did bungy jumping before we headed into Queenstown some had to be coaxed but did it.

Tony was in his element in Queenstown bombing down the luge track at the top of the mountain which we went up in a gondola (cable car). We didn't do much else in Queenstown except walk round the lake, but we enjoyed the lakeside atmosphere and breakfast outside on the lake shore. After the walk Thea had to have a paddle it was very cold, but refreshing on the feet.

We have now moved on but will tell you about that on the next blog.