I think cramp-ons are the best thing since sliced bread.

I arrived in Wanaka earlier, and will be here for a couple of days. I'm a bit knackered at the moment because I've been using my legs too much. After Tongariro last week it took my poor legs days to learn how to walk again, and then I walked along part of the Abel Tasman national park, and then hiked up a blinking glacier yesterday. And it's all been great :)

I can't find an easy way to put my pictures up at the moment, so I can't share with you all the absolute beauty of New Zealand. The Tongariro Crossing is a 19.4km hike, part of a 4 day walk, that goes up a mountain, around another one, and then down again. It was a long day and our guides pushed us because daylight hours are shorter now it's winter. But we went up Mount Tongariro, next to Mount Ngarahoe (I think that's how you spell it) which was used as Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. We couldn't climb it because it was covered in snow but we were very close to it. It's lovely to look at because it's proper volcano shape, and the region is active too, although apparently only slightly, if that's possible. Once we were up the first climb (which was really difficult because at the top the wind was practically blowing us back off the mountain - no wonder it took Frodo and Sam three films to get there, it's a blinking effort) we walked through a crater (covered in snow) and then strapped on the cramp-ons to do the next climb. It was a bit scary and I didn't like it (I think I kept saying "it's horrid, it's horrid") but the guides helped me and I was the first one at the top :) The views from the top were of snow-covered mountains all over the place and more craters, which in summer are bright green emerald lakes, but were all frozen over and covered in snow when I saw them. We ate our lunch just down from the top so we weren't being battered by the wind, and then came the absolute worst, and best bits. First of all we had to get down this steep slope that was just soil and it was hard and scary - a random German helped me down but we were all wearing so many layers and hats and scarves that I couldn't find him later to thank him. But then - the best bit :) We slid down the snow on the mountain side on our bums, my preferred method of descent and for once the correct one. Ah-ha! I loved it, and as we went down the side more mountains came into view and it was such a lovely way to see them. After that was a few more hours of tramping through snow and craters and then downhill through a forest to the bus at the bottom, which had beer and chips waiting for us :) The day was very long and I found it extremely challenging, but I am so glad I did it (and also that I had a walking pole and thermals) because it was one of the best things I have done in New Zealand. The other two were to come...

After Taupo and Tongariro, I travelled down to Wellington, and then caught the ferry across to the south island. On the way into Picton, on the south island, the ferry spent an hour moving through the fjords and we passed a group of dolphins, just playing around. There must have been about 30 of them just having fun.

At Picton I caught the Magic Bus straight to Nelson, and I was the only traveller on the bus. I had a whole coach to myself and it was really good because the driver just chatted to me rather than giving me all the information about what we were passing (which, really, was just acres and acres and acres of vineyards). So that was good. In Nelson I stayed for two nights so I could go to Abel Tasman and do part of the coastal walk. I'd heard it was beautiful but I was not expecting it to be THAT beautiful. Ah man. I did 12.4km along the coast, past beautiful beach after beautiful beach. The sea was such a gorgeous shade of green and the sun was shining :)

On my way down here I stopped at Greymouth for the night, but it rained the whole time so everyone just watched films and ate the free cream cakes. The next day, which was actually yesterday, I caught the bus down to Franz Jospeh and in the afternoon I did a glacier hike. I could have opted to stay for three nights and do a whole day on the glacier but really, half a day was enough for me. I was absolutely terrified because all the scary bits of Tongariro were coming back to me on the bus but once the cramp-ons were on I was leaping around and only got freaked out once :) Our guide took us up into the clouds, so we all got wet, and then through a couple of cracks and an awesome cave which was blue inside from the really really clear ice. Our guide was really good - he'd been up on the glacier since 8am carving out steps with his icepick so everything was really safe and there were ropes to hang onto too, and at one point I even got to hold the spade. Tee hee. I really enjoyed it and after Tongariro the climbs up weren't so tiring and the steps down weren't so scary and I enjoyed it all the more for that. I'd heard it was something not to be missed but it was a whole lot better than I was expecting. I've been on a glacier now. I feel like Heidi.

So now I'm in Wanaka, and I will leave it at that and end what is turning out to be the longest blog entry of all time. Don't worry, you can stop soon - I'll be home before too much longer :)