Last night I stayed at the local YHA and hadn't been in the room more than 5 minutes when a girl came in and asked if I had made any plans for seeing the glacier and luckily the answer was negative. She then proceeded to tell me that she had just got back from the full day hike and had been absolutely petrified - one girl in the group had sat down in tears and said she couldn't go any further. When she then showed me how there was hardly any skin left on her feet, I decided that she probably had a point. So this morning I was up to do the Heli-Hike - more expensive but infinitely more civilised by the sounds of it. The helicopter took 6 of us at a time and dropped us on a plateau near the top of the glacier. Our guide for the hike was with us and told the pilot to make the trip "interesting" - this involved lots of swooping and dipping and your stomach ending up in your throat, very much like a roller-coaster. Once on solid(ish) ground we had to fit our ice talons onto the boots we had been given back at the bottom - these were basically strapped to your boot and were metal soles with spikes on to help you grip the ice. Once I had realised that these did their job reasonably well and my confidence improved, I began to move much more freely on the surface of the glacier. We then did a 2 hour hike up, across and back down the glacier. For some reason I had expected the surface to be fairly flat, but we passed through a brilliant white blue ice wonderland, with pinnacles, caves, crevices and flowing melt water. Breathtaking! At least these pictures will be different from my usual sunset shots! I think another advantage of the heli trip is that you bypass all the dirty ice near the bottom of the glacier. The glacier is part of the Westland National Park and was discovered in 1865 by an Austrian called Julius Haast, who named it after his emporer who had a flowing white beard. Now for the geography bit: the Pacific and Australian plates meet along the NZ Alpine Fault, pushing the Soputhern Alps upwards and southwards by over 10mm per year. The windflow of the Roaring Forties comes off the sea and heads up and over this range, depositing huge volumes of rain and snow and creating the glaciers. Glaciers normally move only 10s of metres per year, but the vast snowfall here results in it moving an average of 2.5 metres per day. It is the fastest flowing and steepest guided glacier anywhere in the world. I was lucky enough to get a front seat on the return helicopter ride and once back in town had a snack and set off on the road. I am now ensconced in Haast village, population 295!! Surprised they have internet. Off to cook tea now and an early night is waiting after all the fresh air and exercise. Sherry xx