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Galavanting on glaciers:
After the incredibly creepy fishing town, we made our way back to civilisation to Franz Josef Glacier. We (being I) had already decided that we were to climb the glacier. Having completely ignored Marky's mumblings that he had been on a glacier in the alps before, I went ahead and booked us on a heli hike. This extravagantly involved us being dropped off on to the glacier where we walked around for a while with crampons, before being picked up by the same helicoptor and flown home! It was the most incredible experience, although it left you feeling quite vulnerable expecially when we witnessed a huge chunk (probably the size of a house) falling off above us. We were really fortunate as this was one of the few beautiful days we had in the South Island.
We left Franz Josef behind and decided to carry on on the Haast Pass down to Wanaka. We stayed in a DOC campsite on the way which was set by a beautiful lake (so Marky could go fishing), we thought this is perfect, and it was untill dusk when the sand flies came out in their droves looking for blood. We spent the night locked in our van brutally killing any unlucky sand fly that found itself in our van! The following morning we set off early and headed for Wanaka. The drive was outstanding - snow capped peaks and clear blue lakes- a geographers heaven. We found ourselves a lovely campsite set away from a river (so Marky could fish without the fear of being chewed alive), we spent 3 chilled out days here. I decided that this would be the best time to do something a little crazy, so I and the guy living in the van next door went and did a sky dive over mount Wanaka. Mark went fishing. The experience was great and the views outstanding but I don't think I would rush back to do it again!
After getting the crazyness out of our systems (Marky was borderline extreme fishing by this point!) we decided to head to Milford Sounds. It took us about a day to drive there and we stayed for roughly 4 hours! The rain and the huge amounts of people were enough to put us off for life. We did, however, do a boat trip through the sounds which we had been told were beautiful- we couldn't comment as we couldn't really see infront of us. The highlight was seeing hump back whales who come in to the sounds to feed (although I was cursing at having paid a fortune to see Sperm Whales in Kaikoura - Mark was smuggly enjoying himself!). We left Milford Sounds feeling that it was a little over rated - we think that there are other places in NZ which are more deserving of such high praise.
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