We arrived at Franz Josef on Tuesday afternoon. Lucy decided to go kayaking with some of the others from the bus on Lake Mapourika, a mirror lake with the mountains reflecting onto the lake (Jess decided to sit this one out as it was described as 'requires decent upper body strength' which she lacks!). The kayak was cold but so worth it, even though Lucy crashed a lot of times, with the leader saying 'Lucy why have you got soil all over the end of your kayak?!'. That night we went in the hot tub at our Rainforest Retreat hostel, with some others from the bus in front of us and then headed to the hostel bar for food, drinks and limbo! We were still recovering from the previous nights fancy dress so had an early night ready for the glacier hike the next morning.

When we arrived at the glacier centre, we were told that it was too windy for the helicopters to get up to the glacier so we would have to wait until the afternoon, so we returned to the hostel, dubious about whether we would be able to make it up the glacier despite the perfect blue skies. Luckily the wind died down and we managed to get into the helicopter ready to hike the glacier. We got front seats in the helicopter with beautiful views of the glacier, rainforest and the sea. We landed on the ice, put our crampons on and set off on our 3 hour hike. This involved climbing over crevaces, sliding/crawling through tunnels and caves. Jess screamed 'I'm gonna get stuck' to which the guide replied, 'Jess you are the smallest person to ever go in the cave, you are NOT going to get stuck!'. The weather was perfect and we had an amazing day, a once in a lifetime opportunity before we took the helicopter back down to the heliport - one of the best days yet!

An added bonus to the hike was free access to the glacier hot pools which a few of us went in later that evening, stupidly starting in the hottest pool by accident and then having to go back to the cooler ones. After watching a film, we headed to the bar again, again us getting most drunk and again losing at pool but still a really good night. We played rock paper scissors and one of the girls won a free Nevis swing while Lucy came second and won a free bar crawl in Queenstown (woo!).

We left our lovely Franz Josef hostel and headed further south to Wanaka. Our driver told us that Lake Wanaka used to be joined to the sea so there were dolphins in there which we could go and feed just before sunset. We stupidly believed Josh and headed to the lake, with bread in hand, to feed the dolphins. We bumped in Josh who had been for a run and he was in hysterics at the fact we were looking for dolphins as dolphins do not exist in lakes!

This morning we left Wanaka and stopped at Puzzling World on our way which was full of cool illusions and a very stressful, fustrating maze. Jess managed to squeeze ketchup all over her face, clothes, hair and table - TWICE!

We have just arrived in the adventure/party capital of the world, Queenstown, and are very excited for tonights events. We are staying here for 4 nights (in a double room - yessssss!) before we head to Christchurch and fly to Singapore :( so we will update you again in a few days.

J&L x