Early start to get to Dunedin for lunch time (4 hour drive). Plan was to go on Elm tours trip to see the rare Yellow Eyed Penguins, Blue Penguins, seals, sealines and hopefully Albatros. Checked into YHA hostel which was apprently haunted. The weather was still not good with rain most of the time but it did clear up a bit for the tour but it was very overcast, indeed very foggy in places - we couldn't actually see the beach and sea we were actually driving jus...

Arrived in Franz Joseph after quite an epic journey in the rain. This is home to a glacier which is made more unusal because of its proximaty to a rain forest. We braved the weather and booked onto the half day hike onto the glacier. They supplied walking boots, socks, waterproof trousers, raincoat and crampons, so we were well prepared.. weren't we? At least 4 times we were all asked if we had our crampons so how was it that after 2 hours treking to a certai...

Arrived in Franz Joseph after quite an epic journey in the rain. This is home to a glacier which is made more unusal because of its proximaty to a rain forest. We braved the weather and booked onto the half day hike onto the glacier. They supplied walking boots, socks, waterproof trousers, raincoat and crampons, so we were well prepared.. weren't we? At least 4 times we were all asked if we had our crampons so how was it that after 2 hours treking to a certai...

Arrived in Franz Joseph after quite an epic journey in the rain. This is home to a glacier which is made more unusal because of its proximaty to a rain forest. We braved the weather and booked onto the half day hike onto the glacier. They supplied walking boots, socks, waterproof trousers, raincoat and crampons, so we were well prepared.. weren't we? At least 4 times we were all asked if we had our crampons so how was it that after 2 hours treking to a certai...

New Years Day. Once off the ferry we journeyed down towards the west side of the south island heading for Franz Joseph. It was a lovely evening to be doing the drive and no-one else seemed to be on the road, felt like we had New Zealand and it's amazing scenery all to ourselves. But the windy roads were very tiring so we decided to stop overnight where we could, which turned out to be a quaint little town called Reefton about 2.5 hours from the Ferry. We got ...