New Zealand

After Haast Pass we spent the night beside a lake with the rainforest covered mountains as a backdrop - perfect! We headed straight for the Fox Glacier. It was raining by this point so we donned our waterproofs and walked right up to the glacier's moraine. It was huge and only made us more excited about seeing the Franz Josef Glacier. With full bellies from a massive fry up at the Fox Glacier township we travelled down the road to Franz Josef town. Almost as soon as we arrived we signed up for a heli-hike for the following day!

Fox Glacier

To say we were excited would be an understatement. The trip didn't start until 10.15am but we were up, giggling excitedly and trying to calm each other down by 7am!!! After the usual safety chats and the dishing out of gear we were ready. We climbed aboard the helicopter - Nic got to sit up at the front next to the pilot! We had the most perfect weather, blue skies and no clouds, we could see for miles and the views were just gobsmacking.

View of Franz Josef Glacier from the helicopter

We landed on the ice, attached our crampons and then began our hike. We were on the ice for about an hour and a half, climbing through ice caves, over gullies and beside small waterfalls. The ice was a beautiful blue in places and just as we began to relax in the serenity of it all there was a small avalanche near the top of the glacier! We continued hiking beside a pristine clear lake and over jagged ice formations. The view from the glacier was fantastic and we both filled our cameras with endless pictures of ice, snow and towering mountains.

It was all over too quickly and on the way back down we both got to sit up front, we had the best views in the house! By the time we had landed back in the town grey clouds had quickly worked their way over to the glacier - talk about perfect timing!

Our rental car was now left behind for a better model - a campervan! We will have this beauty for 25 days come rain or shine - it will be very cold and the heating only works when connected up to external power! It (he - Nic has named him Dick after his number plate) has a gas cooker, sink, fridge, toaster and heater, our bed is the table/bench and the CD player keeps on jumping at very amusing places - Nina Simone can't half rap good!

Dick

Bangers and mash - our first meal in Dick

Beddy byes!

We headed straight down to the south coast towards to the Catlins, via Clifden for some unguided cave exploring! We ended up staying at a view point with the ocean pounding the cliffs beneath us - nobody decided to join us that night, we fell asleep to wind and the waves!

Just off the windswept cliffs...

After quickly stopping off at Invercargill for breakfast, we headed through the Catlins national park and found ourselves at the most southerly point of the South Island, Slope Point. We stopped off at a few bays along the coast and were confronted with a family of sea lions, a few penguins, fossilied trees from the Jurassic period and I guess NZ's equivalent of the 12 apostles, (no way near as commercialised!) after beating the campervan up going down all the dirt tracks they call roads! We spend a night amongst the swampy wetlands.

Slope Point

A quick growl! Maybe we got too close....

Dunedin was the next bit civilisation we would stay at, we were due a shower and a warm nights sleep. This place is abundant in its Scottish roots and has brilliant architecture. We braved the steepest street in the world and treated ourselves to a rented TV for the night (only two quid!)
Our next stop was just magical! We drove out to the Otago Peninsula to the only natural mainland breeding colony of the Royal Albatross. The season wasn't perfect for a viewing but boy did we get a good look! These birds are huge and have a prehistoric air about them. One pair were flying around, probably only 10 metres above our heads - considering their wingspan is on average 3 metres they seemed pretty close. . it was an experience we'll never forget! They were checking their babies were all good, which weigh in at a whopping 8kgs (fat little birdies!). We left this area not before stopping at NZ's only castle and headed inland for another random stop over. We then drove over Haast pass (one of only three passes throughout the whole Southern Alps!) which was awe-inspiring! We stopped over at another lake, which is pretty close to the fault line running down the dividing range before Glacier country time...

Dunedin

On the way up the world's steepest street!

A well earned rest

After walking best part of 100 miles, our legs were in need of rest and decided we would allow a rental car to take care of getting from A to B. We stopped over in Queenstown for two nights, watched over the jagged Remarkables Mountains and strolled around the streets taking in the sights. We weren't going to do any thrill seeking activities just yet!!! We jumped into the hire car and made our way through the beautiful old gold mining village of Arrowtown - it's autumn here and colours are so vivid! We drove through Wanaka for a quick lunch stop as we'll be visiting here again (a few times!) and admired the tranquil lake that the town sits next to.

Queenstown

Arrowtown

Wanaka Lake

Our final destination was Mt Cook - Australasia's tallest at nearly 4000m. The accommodation here wasn't hard to choose, YHA or a 120 year old 5 star hotel - we'll leave that for another time! The peaks looked quite daunting yet we donned on our gear and decided to hike half way up Mt Olivier, Sir Edmund Hillary's first accomplished peak! We were entertained by avalanches on the distant glaciers and ever-looming Mt Cook. We also clambered along and across New Zealand's largest glacier (Tasman) before relaxing back at the hostel.

Hiking up Mt. Olivier

On Mt. Oliver with the Mueller Glacier behind us (Nic had just farted...)

Tasman Lake at the end of the Tasman Glacier

We would spend the next night and day at Lake Tekapo which was just so relaxing. A quick visit to the observatory - this place is competing for the new UNESCO world heritage area for the skies! It's apparently one of the best places to check out the stars, very dark at night, however not clear enough when we were there...

Exploring the observatory

View of Lake Tekapo from our hostel

What better way to finish off the Milford Track than with a cruise?! We jumped aboard our boat and set off, heading towards the sea through Milford Sound.

We glided over the calm waters sailing by cascading waterfalls and sheer cliffs whilst passing 1692m high Mitre Peak. It was a beautiful end to our trip and we even got to see some New Zealand Fur Seals!

Day 1

Day 2

Unsure of the way....

Day 3

Nic enjoying the sunshine

Getting ready to go over the tops!

Day 4

The end!

The Milford Track has been described at one of the finest walks in the world. It's heavily regulated by the DOC and at only 53.5km (33 miles) over four days makes it easily accessible to almost anyone willing to give it a go. Because of these reasons the track is often booked up months in advance and the huts are nearly always full. This was the most commercial and controlled hike we would complete.

We were following in the footstep of the Maori who used this route through the mountains to get to their precious greenstone. We caught a bus and a boat to get to the start of the track and got on with the first days hike - a tortorous one hour walk to the first hut! The second day was a little tougher and we began walking our way up through the valley, enjoying huge waterfalls and seeing the msit gently lift as the sun finally found it's way to us. Unlike the Kepler and Routburn which gets it's big hill section out of the way at the very beginning, the Milford's mountain doesn't come until the third day. This was a fantastic day, we immediately began our climb straight from the hut. Up, up we walked, into a huge mass of cloud. The wind was getting stronger and had a real bite to it and by the time we were near the summit we were quickly climbing into our waterproof gear and winter woolies. The scenery was very moody, ice covered the grass and rocks and a thick cloud blocked out any views there were to be had. After a very brief exploration of the summit we continued along the top, hoping Nic wouldn't get blown off before we reached the shelter for a quick cuppa. The descent was completely different. The cloud slowly cleared, the wind stopped and the sun came out - we got brilliant views of the surrounding snow capped peak as we made our way down into the valley. We dropped by Sutherland Falls, New Zealand's highest and the world's fifth highest waterfall at 580m. Our last day was spent walking out of the valley, past Mackay Falls and Bell Rock (a huge hollow boulder) and savoring the end of our Great Walks.