More Glacier activities this morning…..checked out of the Alpine Lodge, not a minute too soon for Annelise as it was a bit to Backpacker for her liking. Drove 20 minutes to Franz Joseph glacier "town". Checked in for our tour (second part of Annabel and Martin's present to A) and were kitted out with boots, smelly socks and jackets. Ambled over to the helicopter pad so Rusty could take us up the glacier. Flew 10 minutes hugging the steep sided lush valley walls until we were over the expanse of ice 1 km wide.Touched down 800m above sea level about 6km up the glacier, below a major ice fall, huge columns of blue ice above us.

Attached our crampons and received a quick lesson in using an ice axe. Set off across the ice following our guide. We were dressed up like Scott of the Antarctic, she was wearing a T-shirt. Spent a couple of hours walking over crevasses, around huge ice boulders and compression arches. (Have to look that one up in Geog. Text book). Annelise was mesmerized and despite her aversion to cold, seemed to really enjoy walking on a 50m deep pile of ice! So thanks again Annabel and Martin for the present. Nerdy facts: these glaciers are unusual because they stop very close to the sea, both in distance and altitude, move very rapidly (2 meters per day), are growing in length despite global warming, and have up to 50metres of snow a year feeding the ice supply at the top of the glacier.

Sadly it was time to head back to the car, via the return helicopter. Annelise was co pilot again and, with her 2 hours of flight time decided she was qualified to back seat drive the pilot, telling him to keep his eyes where we were going. He responded by flying directly towards a cliff, muttering "I don't know if we are going to make it", cleared the rocks by a few feet and dived the other side. A-lo screeched with laughter, went pale and stayed quiet after that.

In the afternoon we drove 300km up the west coast to our next stop on the Buller River, just outside Westport. Scenery was as good as ever with lush green mountains, deserted beached and rocky creeks. Stopped at the Pancake rocks in Punakaki for a photo.

Arrived at lodge at 5.30 and admired the view. Being Valentines, we had dinner in a lovely setting looking over gardens and the river down below. However the other guests were marathon addicted South Africans who had moved to Brisbane. They turned out to be founding members of the Brisbane AWB and spent the whole meal giving us their rather one-sided view of South African politics….. Annelise made her excuses at 10, leaving me to receive degree level tutoring on the Boer War, affirmative action, impending civil war and crime statistics…..