So to continue, up at 7am (did someone mention we were on holiday), checkout of the superb Alpine Motor Lodge and round to get suited and booted for the glacier walk.

After donning rubber over trousers, hiking boots and socks, you get hats, waterproof coats and crampons, then onto a coach with the rudest of all guides who really has no interest in the fact you just paid 130NZD to go on a tour, because there is one pace, his, oh and his four year old daughter can do this walk better than any of yuse!! Enamoured not.

After a 15 min drive, then hike through a special bush trail that adds 25 mins to the walk, you make it to the fences where you can only pass if with a guide (for your safety and their pockets, cynic). A 10 min walk up an 80 foot gravel mountain (with our guide spurtin on ahead and no interest if anyone has died on the way), we then meet a slow guide who will take the less able of us on a more sedate walk, and one that will tell us things on the way (what a novelty). So useless guide gone off at a sprinting pace with the fool hardy following, on then with our crampons (yes you can actually put crampons on flip flops) and time to get wet. The half day tour is listed as “moderate” difficulty, mmmm, put it this way you need full upper and lower body strength, squeezing through some very narrow crevasses and at times relying solely on the crampons to stay upright.

After 2 hours you start to feel knackered, but the views are pretty spectacular (and no I don’t mean my physique either). Eventually you get to a clearing where you can have a breather and a snack, yes, err no, time to remove your crampons and prepare for the 1 hour hike back to the bus, where Mr Organised can’t even figure out which bus he is driving.

All told a worth while experience, but probably not one we’d repeat.

This is just part of the hike across the Franz Josef Glacier this morning. Talk about tiring and strenuous, but we did it. Now where’s that hot tub to chill in, eh?

Yup at 8.45am (NZ time), we will start our trek up Franz Josef Glacier. Oh Boy, cold, wet and tired will we be? Well for starters it’s chilly and tipping it down, so there’s two out of three before we start.

After that it’s a drive down to Haast for a good rest hopefully.

Yey Franz Josef in the pouring rain, but who cares. Booked into the Alpines Motor Lodge and upgraded FOC (nice), we wombled down to the Hot Pools, where there are 3 public baths (36, 38 and 40 degrees) and then you can upgrade to your own private pool for an hour, so we did.

Tomorrow at 8.45am we start our wobble up the glacier, so spare a thought for these two poor travellers hiking across a glacier while you are all 2 foot under snow.

Another restful evening listening to the sea crashing against the rocks all night long.

This morning up and out of Hokitika enroute to Franz Josef Glacier and Haast (bad joke time, if they have letters and parcels there, do they get them Post Haaste, sorry). First stop is Mrs Foggy to validate her beach rock as being a “real pebble”. After that it’s the Glacier slide, sorry walk experience.

Actually is GOLD in this case as Mrs Fogg eyes up this nugget in the local gold emporium in Hokitika.

This lump is actually 18,000NZD worth of the precious metal. It took the sales assistant several minutes to pry it out of Mrs Fogg’s fingers.

Meanwhile I tried to get another buzz cut done on my over grown baldy locks. With two strikes in two empty hairdressers it was not looking promising. Both proclaimed they were completely full and the earliest they could fit me in would be next Tuesday. In typical comedy sketch fashion I looked around both hairdressers and not a soul could be seen. I asked if they were really that busy “oh yes”, well can I use your trimmers to do my own head, “oh no, you need training”, REALLY! “yes sir it takes years to master the art. Given that New Zealand are crying out for hairdressers I can understand why now if these poor soles are rushed off their feet for a week. I can feel a job change coming, me a hairdresser and Mrs Fogg a plumber, then we can emigrate, now where did I put that pink floral shirt, open toed sandals and sarong sweety.