Hiya,

Well we made it up and drove from Queenstown to the Fox Glacier all along the Haast Pass which was beautiful. Covered a fair amount of kms but well worth it. People had mentioned to us that Fox was pretty small and we would have no trouble finding the office where we had to go for our Heli-hike, but you never quite believe them.

Believe them!! Fox is just one road and if you blink about five times in a row you would miss Fox!! It is a gorgeous place very remote and quiet, and surprisingly the warmest place we have been to in NZ - how does that work?! I actually managed to put my shorts on.... for about 2 hours! Still, it was nice to see the sun, and Paul in the space of 10 minutes actually managed to get burnt??!! So we had lunch at the Cafe Neve and then went back to the hostel and just chilled out. Then got ready and went to the Cook Saddle for dinner - yes the day did revolve around food!! And fab food it was too.

The next day we had to be at the office for the Heli-hike at 12 noon. So we had something to eat at the Cafe Matheson which has a great view of the Glacier and then made our way to the office.

So what is a Heli-hike? Well, basically you get a helicopter up to the higher part of the Glacier (where none of the other walkers go and the ice is just very clean and unaffected by humans) and you then get taken out all over the glacier for a hike with a guide for 2.5 hours. It was amazing. The ice was blue it was so clean and we found our way through some caves and looked down things called 'Moulins' (I think that's how you spell it) which can be small or large - and when I say large they have seen some that are large enough to swallow a bus??!! Anyway, we saw a Shammy on the Glacier (a goat to you and I but for some reason the guides called it a Shammy?!) and it made some very fast moves over the ice. Met a fab girl called Jane who now lives in Hong Kong with her hubby but is originally from Southport (Hiya honey if you're reading this!!) and generally had a fantastic time up on the ice. Did I mention that Jane and I got to sit in the front of the helicopter on both the flight up and down again? It has it's advantages being small!!

Anyway, upon our return we made our way to the pub to warm up with a couple of vodkas - it was 4pm and strangely at 9pm I found my way back to the hostel!! It was a fantastic day, and an experience I won't ever forget.

At 4am the next morning the alarm went off for our mammoth drive to Wellington (well, Picton and then ferry to Wellington). The drive was sooo sooo long but eventually we made it to Picton where we discovered that the ferry we were booked on was delayed by about 2.5 hours so we begged and succeeded in being moved onto the earlier ferry which was only 1/2 hour late!! So after a long day we arrived in Wellington at about 7.30pm and just collapsed in the Wildlife House Hostel. All I wanted to do was sleep, but the room overlooked the street where one of the bars was, and this bar was playing ALL my favourite music. If I hadn't been quite so tired I would have gone out cos it sounded great. But I refrained, and passed out.

The next morning feeling a little refreshed but not much, we went for a walk around Wellington, found Mr Buns Cafe for brekkie and then made our way to Te Papa, which is the NZ museum and great fun. We could easily have spent a day there but limited ourselves to a couple of hours so we could make our way up to Lake Taupo.

After an interesting drive across the middle of the North Island we arrived in Taupo and wow! It is really is beautiful. The Lake is huge and the town just so pretty. The motel we were booked into overlooked the lake - and the view was amazing.

So today we are going to try and find something to do to amuse ourselves and then drive up to Rotorua where we stay tonight. I'll let you know asap what we find to do here..................

xx