Driving day. We started early at 9.45am. I was glad to be out of the motel, not very impressed with this place. First place to visit was the petrol station, we took a longer way to a mobil that was the cheapest in the area. Sometimes every little helps.

Drove to Arrowtown, it was HOT! The sun was out in full force. Arrowtown was a small mining town, still with original architecture. We almost bee-lined to the sweet shop, very much like the ones in British seaside resorts. The lady there (from Ireland) said the sweets were actually imported from the UK. We bought cola bottles and flying saucers and some of their home made fudge.

We passed by the Shotover jetski station and stopped for a couple of pictures. [ETA 5 Jan: The Shotover Jet operation was shut down before Christmas, and again at New Year's, because of technical problems and fire. I'm doubly glad we didn't go.] More adventure watching at the AJ Hackett bungy jump place at Kawaroua bridge. Seemed fun, but not for us.

Finally got under way with the real journey, heading towards the glaciers. We took turns driving, changing over more often than usual, and taking more stops. Perhaps that helped so we weren't as tired. It was an extremely hot day, we were burning up through the glass in the car. I tried to keep my arms in the shade but not much luck.

Stopped at Lake Hawea for quick photos. BEAUTIFUL.

Eventually lunch was at almost 3pm at Haast Township. We had fish and chips. Ah, township, what an interesting definition, there was a supermarket, a café, a pub and several motels, that was the sum total of the township.

Another 140km or so of roads, and that was when the unsettled weather started. It could be bright sunshine, and the all of a sudden we'd hit a rain patch. Eventually we reached Franz Josef township early evening. Heh, township. It was another one main street settlement.

Our hotel was the Alpine Glacier, one of those where you parked your car directly outside your unit door. Quality wise, it was in between Portabello and Colonial village. Large room, clean and new fittings. No cooking facilities though, not even a microwave or electric frying pan.

At the advice of the very friendly and helpful owner lady, we booked our heli-hike for tomorrow and investigated the restaurants. Ended up at a place called The Landing, we had lasagna and shepherd's pie. Originally we wanted venison hotpot but they'd sold out.

Afterwards I investigated the converted bus that was the local internet access place. It was cool.

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Our helihike was at noon, so we gathered with our group at the check-in point late morning, paid our $640 (eeeep!!!) and got changed into boots and waterproof jackets. The guide told us to just take our cameras and water, no need for anything else. It wasn't that cold up there anyway. I only had a polo shirt and a t-shirt underneath the jacket.

Waited about 20 minutes for the helicoptors to arrive. The ride was short but beautiful, the hike itself was 2 hours and ... what can I say? Amazing. Breath-taking, Trip of a lifetime. The crevices were deep, but we were with an easy group of 12 people so nothing too challenging. Crampons on the boots helped, and we got our ice-legs soonish. The caves and the water flows and general sights were so great. Probably better told with pictures.

It was hard to comprehend exactly how large the cracks were. What seemed like just small gaps could be the size of a person. There were also ice caves hidden away that we could crawl into. Where there was ice, the surface was slippery, and blue ice even more so.

Every so often we'd turn back and look up at the glacier. It was a sight.

Chopper trip down I managed to get the front seat and took some more pics. At the valley station we got a little brochure and a "certificate" that we "did" the Franz Josef Glacier. There was also a bunch of information about how glaciers form and how come there's a glacier at this latitude. The main reason is the lack of any landmasses that stop the rainclouds that blow into the western side of South Island. It takes 5 years for climatic changes to take effect, so if it doesn't snow enough one year, 5 years later the tip of the glacier will retreat.

Back to our room for shower and a late lunch of toast and pate, yum. After a short nap we drove out to Fox Glacier and another 6km to Lake Matheson. 1.5 hour walk around the lake, more exercise and walking for the day. Good scenery but the main attraction was the mirror lake reflection of Mount Cook. Which was behind clouds mostly but still nice photo opportunities.

Dinner back at The Landing, our food took a long time to arrive, it was just a chicken/brie/cranberry sauce pizza and lamb salad, apparently something went wrong with the pizza. I was kinda annoyed and they refunded us $20. Not expected but good gesture.

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Long drive to Christchurch, on the map about 5 hrs. We stopped at lunch at Hokitika, a largish (for NZ) town that was quite touristy. It was full of jade and craft shops and a whole bunch of coaches that stopped and disgorged tourists. Kinda forgotten it was sunday but we were reminded by the sign at a restaurant that advertised sunday roast. We had a large plate of roast lamb each - $13.95 gave us a small mountain of roast lamb, roast potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, cauliflower cheese and peas all in a big heap on the plate. niiiice. That place was self service and boasted "the largest teapot collection in nz", so we had to try their tea. I had a very strong English breakfast and mm had peppermint, both from tea leaves. Altogether an excellent sunday roast lunch.

Moving on, the drive to Christchurch took us through Arthur's Pass, quite a steep climb, especially in our car that had no uphill ability. There were few cars on the road. The road eventually levelled out and by the time we were 50km from Christchurch the road was almost ramrod straight. It was also extremely hot outside so the effect was that I could see the heat from the road, and oncoming vehicles were hard to spot. Driving in remote areas like this I always turn the headlights on full, even in bright sunshine, it makes me so much more visible to other cars. I was thinking that we probably saw more roadkill than cars at some point.

Christchurch was a city alright. It was the first time we stopped at a traffic light for a week! There were more cars than we'd encountered the entire week. Trams! Taxis! Buses!

Our motel was the Milano motorlodge. Very nice again, large room, this time with very soft carpet. Nice colour coordination, everything was yellow and blue but very pleasing. The landlady was also extremely friendly and helpful, we're lucking out again.

Took a drive out to city centre. everything was closed, it was worse than the UK. Walked round a bit, to the cathedral, the pedestrianised zones and took some pictures of the trams. Dinner at this place called Six missing chairs that was supposed to be award winning. Service was home-styled and the cooking pretty decent, but I'm not so sure about "award winning." mm had venison and I had lamb shanks. We were reading brochures we picked up from the hotel and discovered this was a byo restaurant, so I ran down to the car and took one of the bottles of pinot noir we bought in Bannockburn. Corkage was $5 per bottle.

After dinner we drove up the road to a 24 hr supermarket, bought some silverside and hummus for picnic lunch tomorrow. So tempted to buy more but we were flying the day after, so we had to restrain ourselves.

I was amazed at the familiar names. There was a Hereford street one block from Worcester, another street up was Gloucester, followed by Armagh and Chester. There was Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Liverpool, Salisbury, Aberdeen, St Albans and the whole region was called Canterbury. Christchurch itself was located on the River Avon. It was like going home.

***

6am wake up, 7am leaving time. It was overcast and foggy. We were really early, got there at 9.30-9.45am, checked in and were told that our '10.30am' sailing meant watching a video at 11am, then boarding. We walked around the village and stopped for peppermint tea and chocolate milkshake.

A short coach ride to the boat, it was a fast speedboat that held around 60 people and was full. We couldn't walk around like other cruises, sat at our seats till the guide found a whale, then we all trundled up to the roof.

The crew consisted of a guide and a couple of spotters. The guide gave funny but clichéd comments. But it didn't matter, we spotted a whale very quickly. The boat got into a perfect position just behind the whale for about 5 mins, then the crew could tell it was diving and over the PA system the guide even told us when to click our shutters.

Saw 5 whales in all, got close to 4. I tried out the fast shutter speed and got some very cool pics for one dive. And to cap it all, we had a fabulous movie.

Then the guide got us to all scramble back to our seats and the pilot moved the boat quickly inland to shallower waters and caught up with a pod of dolphins, it was the most dolphins I've seen at once. It was wonderful.

There must have been around 30 of them. Some of them were even doing jumps and flips. The best advice from the guide, they usually did 3 or 4 flips, so focus on them and they would probably repeat. And I caught one!

And finally, just watch them swim about, there's something so peaceful about it.

Lunch was at a pub called Strawberry Tree, we had fish and chips and a fisherman's basket meal. Service was very slow, there was only the one guy serving and cooking and he was cooking everything from frozen. Food wasn't value for money either, the fisherman's basket was a few deep fried fish nuggets, one mussel fried, and probably 3-4 potatoes worth of wedges.

As if the day wasn't eventful enough, we went to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, it was open till 10pm and we sneaked in before they closed part of one section. Nice stuff -- deers, birds, farm animals and KIWI!!! Plus other interesting animals. It was worth the trip.

Raining when we left, wanted to find a Chinese takeaway but the one we found was closed. 9.45pm and a takeaway is closed. wtf. Ended up at Mcdonalds where we got the deli sandwiches, kinda sad, but it was what we felt like.

Pretty much all packed now. Bye to South Island.

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