We left and hour earlier than usual from Lake mahinapua this morning because the weather was going to hold up and allow us to do some hikes to see the Franz Josef glacier, Rob the bus driver has tried his hardest at getting spots for us to do the heli hike this afternoon before the possibility of a cancellation tomorrow from the weather forecast but he hasn’t had any luck unfortunately.

We sped on down the very very empty highway, it’s so bizzare how quiet this island is in comparison to the size of it. The southern alpines are gorgeous and extremely high, they all still have snow on their peaks and the water is crystal ice blue running through the streams and rivers around us. Absolutely beautiful! The scenery is so dramatic, really something special when the sun is shining down on it!

We got to the rainforest retreat in Franz Josef around 11am which was really good timing! We checked in and got the low down on pizzafest for tomorrow before grabbing the shuttle up to the glacier car park to start our trek that Rob the driver had recommended us; Roberts point track, it was around 5 hours long return and 14km in distance climbing and walking along the mountains to get to the view point of the Franz Josef glacier at 600m above sea level. My god was it a trek, we were rock climbing most of the trek. Filling our water bottles up in the streams and little waterfalls because the water was fresh and tasted really good actually. The hike was tuff but worth it, the glacier had no clouds on it and we were pretty much eye line with the helicopters driving up through the valley to the glacier. It was beautiful, crystal blue when the sun poked through the clouds and made it shine! It was freezing up there!

No accidents going up but the rocks were slippery and my foot slipped on a flat rock going down, I wasn’t even moving and my foot slipped my leg went underneath me and I smashed my right shin down the edge of a sharp rock, it bloody hurt. Mum always tells me to be careful shaving my shins because if I cut myself it will scar and now well... I will definitely have a few scars. Owww.
Surprisingly bambi didn’t fall, I’m not quite sure how that happened, El falls over her feet on the pavement. We would have had no luck getting back if one of us fell and hurt ourselves badly.

We got the shuttle back at 6pm into town and all got dropped at the one little supermarket, pretty much wiped out the stock of soup and a fresh bread roll. So excited for that to warm us up, have a shower and mong out in the tele room with proper sofas!

Fingers and toes crossed for the weather tomorrow!!