Here comes the sun...

Bottom of Fox glacier

After Wanaka we headed up to Fox Glacier on the west coast of New Zealand - we're sure the views of the Sea would have been great but typically it was raining hard was grey and cloudy so we didn't stop to take any photos!! We booked up to fly up to the top of the glacier and do a couple of hours hike, but unfortunately the cloud never cleared so the Helicopter was not able to fly! We booked in for a half day hike instead and spent a tiring 2 hour hike up to the glacier and then hiked around on it for an hour. It was really cool and the views again were great! Luckily it stayed dry and wasn't too cold.


Walking the glacier


How appropriate (Stace was starving)...

After the hike on the glacier we headed straight up to Franz Josef which was only a couple of hours up the road. We booked into a really nice campsite called the Rainforest which had it's own bar and restaurant, so decided to eat there. Got to the bar and Nath fancied a Jagermeister so we both necked one - uugghhh! Then a Contiki tour turned up (18-35's) and filled the bar up - Nath teamed up with a local guy (Mark) to start taking on some other guys at pool - fortunately Mark was really good and made up for Nath being shite! (he potted the black by accident in the first game). Mark started getting the Vodka redbulls in and we ended up getting wasted and going on to the Blue Ice nightclub (which Nath didn't even remember!!).

Woke up the next morning with our first hangover of the holiday and then took a long 5 hour drive to a place called Hanmer springs - a really nice village that has some thermal Spa's. Finally, the sun came out and the weather was glorious, so we went Mountain biking in the morning, which was great (think we'll get Stace some stabilisers next time though!) and then spent the afternoon in the sun at the Spa.


A well deserved rest from biking


Is that the sulphur pools we can smell, or Nath....?

We have just arrived in Kaikoura where we are going to go Whale watching - unfortunately the weather at sea is a bit rough so our trip has just been cancelled (typically!) - we have booked back in for the trip later on today so fingers crossed the weather will clear in time. It's actually nice and sunny on the land, but the sea does look choppy (maybe time to get some sea sickness tablets)! We're maybe thinking of doing a dolphin swim aswell, but we have to leave tomorrow to drive up to Blenheim to spend a couple of days getting leathered by cycling round wineries (well, it'd be rude not too wouldn't it....)