QUEENSTOWN - FRANZ JOSEF

Longest and best drive so far today, left Queenstown no sign of Hiedi!! Stopped at Wanaka en route, nowt much there and headed straight for Franz Josef. Drove passed tonnes of vinyards, loads of them, they must take a canny bit of looking after!!!! Passed a cliff that they'd just blasted to prevent falling rocks. Drove through the Alps, across Haast pass and into the rainforest.
Now get this right, the west coast gets 5 meters of rain a year!! Now thats mad isnt it? London gets 600mm so here thats 5000mm. So what you get is proper lush rainforest.
Drove along the coast and stopped and saw stacks of pebbles balancing on top of each other, about 6-7 high, hundreds of them, so we built one and set off again.

Stopped at Fox glacier and walked as close to the terminal face as we could. Its honestly huge, the face its self is massive, I reckon Empire State size easily. Then it snakes its way up the valley that it has created for its self. It wasnt as blue and clear as Id imagined, I had imagined looking at a Foxes Glacier Mint but it was pretty dirty from all the top soil that gets blown from the surrounding mountains.

Checked into our hostel in F.Josef by a young Roy Keane look a like, even had the grey beard. We're in a shared dorm with two girls from Cambridge, the Ginger one snored all night like an angry bear. She was on top of me so I had to keep shaking the bunk and each time she woke up she went from angry bear to Chewbacka!!!!