Week 3 of the trip!

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Apologies for the longer delay this time - have had another busy week and not much time to get online! After we left Queenstown last Tuesday we drove (a bit further than we thought!) up to the Franz Josef Glacier on the West Coast of the South Island. We had a 'half day experience' booked on the glacier on Wednesday which was really good fun! Got kitted up with jackets, crampons etc. and the trip lasted about 5 hours in total - with about 2hrs walking on the ice itself. Got to see some awesome ice caves and crevices and the guy said some of them had only appeared about a week before as the glacier moves pretty much everyday! Went down a little cave slide made from the ice too....got very wet bums! Was a really good tour but we were pretty tired by the time we got back to the camper in the evening! Just about had enough energy to visit to thermal glacier pools in Franz Josef that night which was a very relaxing end to the day on the glacier 😊

So, Thursday morning we headed off up the coast again, through Hokitika, and up to Greymouth. We'd heard somewhere that it would be quite a good place to stop....turned out there's NOTHING to do there! Pretty boring town to be honest! So we spiced it up with some cultural food and had a Domino's pizza takeaway in the camper!

After some more driving on Friday morning we ended up in Hanmer Springs for an afternoon of relaxation in the thermal pools. We decided to treat ourselves and splash out on a private hot pool and sauna which was rather swanky! Had a quick stop in the cafe afterwards before heading to a holiday park for the evening (and getting bitten to death by sandflies......one had taken refuge in the end of my sleeping bag and so my feet made a great meal for it!).

Saturday took us to Christchurch to drop off the camper 😞 Sad times leaving it behind; it's been a great little home for the past few weeks! Surprising how much of Christchurch was still derelict after the earthquakes; still mostly shut off and buildings still ruined and being pulled down. Flew out of the airport at 3 in the afternoon and got picked up at Auckland airport by Rich's aunt and uncle. Enjoyed a home-cooked meal and an evening of rugby at their house last night and have been having a tour of Auckland today - we went up the Sky Tower which gave awesome views across the city! Doing the Waitomo caves tomorrow which should be good fun seeing the glow worms!
xxxx

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