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There are two major glaciers on the west coast of the south Island. Fox glacier and Franz Joseph glacier and you can do walks on both of them. We did the Fox glacier as it was the quieter of the two. The glacier itself is massive, 13.5 Ks, and it is currently growing, although the glacier goes through phases of receding too. Apparently 'they' say it will nearly all be gone in 50 years but who knows. The glacier stands next to a rainforest...crazy!! Chris wanted to do the Ice climbing tour, which was about 9 hours long, I didn't really feel like I was cut out for that so I did the half day walk on the glacier. We both had to do the walk through the rainforest to get onto the glacier. It was quite steep at points and we had to walk across a few rocky streams, and beware of any falling rocks. The week before rocks had slid down the mountain and wiped out the path they usually use. Before we got onto the glacier we had to put on our crampons onto our boots and got a walking stick too, I really felt the part. It was pretty cold on the glacier, we only got to walk on it for an hour, I wished we had longer. The ice up close is really blue and has little patterns inside it a bit like a boiled sweet. There were lots of little crevices, that worked as a drain. It was amazing just walking on the glacier. I saw Chris doing the ice climbing. Chris says " It was pretty damn awesome". Some other little facts about New Zealand: the lowest coin they have is 10 Cents, which is worse than Oz as the lowest they had was 5 cents. If you buy something in a shop for 2.99, well they round it up, unfair!! There are tonnes of British people that have emigrated here, and I noticed they had Coronation St on the TV yesterday. I don't think central heating has arrived in New Zealand yet as every place we go has either got a log fire or electric heater. And yes there are loads of sheep.
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