this landscape never ceases to amaze me Wednesday 23rd July today we find the internet YAY ( and discoverd the Dockers won double yay) Gavin is waiting to use the net so I had better hurry up! Today we travelled thought the MOST amazing country, no matter where you looked there was snow capped mountains or waterfalls, then you hit the coast and have surf crashing onto the road, then you turn a corner and its the mountains again. We travelled form Wanaka to Fox glcier, just in time for a stunning sunset (rain stopped) tonight we went on a walk [View Full Entry]

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NZ Day 4 Will Power, Determination, and Wool That’s what got me through the day. Today we woke up bright and early but not too early because we were already across the street from where our glacier adventure would begin. I had pb toast and a nice cup of tea. We didn’t see any of the forecasted snow that was supposed to come overnight so we were excited for the day to come. We suited up in many layers and headed across the street to the glacier guide headquarters. There they suited us up with waterproof jackets and overtrou (over [View Full Entry]

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Panoramic View: At The Top Of Fox Glacier Walk To The Franz Josef Terminal Face It was raining when we woke up at our campsite at Franz Josef. The whole area was grey and shrouded in fog so we wondered what kind of effect this would have on our plans as we hoped to do some walking today. After the usual breakfast, dishes and cleaning up, we headed down the road to the visitors centre to have a look about at the activities available to us in this area. A lot of places were offering helicopter flights (expensive) or alternatively guided [View Full Entry]

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The Nimble Fox Well we arrived in the tiny village of Fox Glacier. It really is tiny, the population was like less than 1000! So the only thing we could do there was literally either walk the glacier or go to the pub, so we did both! We arrived there 2 nights ago and Katie being extremely well organised had booked our walk when we were in Queenstown, which is good cos the tour was full!! What a day though. We got up at a reasonable hour, around 0800 and were all checked in and boot and crampon fitted by [View Full Entry]

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It's about time for an update! No photos this time I'm afraid - I have so many that they're going to take ages to upload so I'll do a big job lot when I have some time - probably when we get back to Christchurch. I'm now in the South Island which is absolutely beautiful! We ended our stay in the North with a great night out in Wellington: a meal in a local restaurant and then drinks at the bar where we were staying which was surprisingly stylish aside from the long table that made up the dance floor! It [View Full Entry]

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well, we had some money left, and decided to go by helicopter onto Fox's glacier. It takes you right high up onto the ice, where it is so quiet. I thought we'd just wander around, but no, we must climb through ice caves and walk along the side of a crevasse. It is not something I want to do again, much too slippery for me. I was quite relieved that we had to be airlifted out early, because the weather turned bad. I thought I was scared of the helicopter, but actually I was a lot more scared of being on [View Full Entry]

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Time for a challenge, anyone? From Queenstown we headed for Wanaka, a small town about two hours north, along a series of ridiculously windy roads (did I mention we were out late the night before?). It's a cute enough place, surrounding (surprisingly) Lake Wanaka, and among its attractions is Puzzling World, a quirky place for those fond of getting lost. The main draw is a large maze when adults and kids alike wander around (unfortunately its a wooden construction, in my opinion any proper maze should consist of hedges), looking for the four corners, before finding their way out again. Myself [View Full Entry]

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after that night we headed upto the next Glacier i mentioned, Fox Glacier. in this one we had some goings on. i actually booked to hike upon to said Glacier and try my luck against mother New Zealand. so after the breifing, we put on our coats, and our boots, and got in the coach which took us to the bottom of this monster. we headed our of the coach with our guide, who has the coolest beard in the world, i wanted to touch it - but daren't ask him. we were at the bottom but we still had to [View Full Entry]

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I finally spelled Haast correctly. Could not find it in the guide books because I thought it was Hast. Oh well. It is just a wide spot in the road. The rain came down in sheets last night. We went for a walk to see the Fox Glacier. They said it was 5 min. walk, like hell it was. Maybe a mountain goat to do it in 5 min.s but it took about 45 min.s for Juanita. I do have to say, I admired her determination and it was well worth it when we got there. Juanita crashed and burned about [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Queenstown, we drove to Fox Glacier. It was again a beautiful drive, first through the sunny hills and plains between Queenstown and Wanaka, and then through the impressive rainforest… in the rain! We took some breaks from driving, Michiel and I went to look at the sea and got very wet and cold (the waves were a little higher and faster than we had expected…) but it was a lot of fun. When we arrived in Fox Glacier it was still raining however, so we were afraid that the heli-hike to the Franz Josef glacier the next day would [View Full Entry]

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