The ride to Franz is a wonderful one. The first 80 km took us through the Aspiring region and along the banks of Lake Hawea to Makarora. The next 65 km were an ascent and then a descent of the hills of the Southern Alps as we crossed the Haast Pass and proceeded down to the sea coast to the town of Haast. It was raining very heavily as we drove into a café by the road for coffee and snacks. From Haast, we drove 120 km along the western coast of New Zealand to the Fox Glacier. This drive was very different from all the ones we'd done in New Zealand so far because the vegetation was thick and lush green. It continued to rain heavily as we drove along with the Tasman Sea to our left and the Westland National Park to our right. The weather cleared after a while and through the clouds, we saw Mt. Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand, in the distance as we neared Fox Glacier where we stopped for some coffee to warm ourselves for the final 27 km to Franz Josef Glacier. The weather turned cloudy once again from Fox Glacier and by the time we reached Franz Josef Glacier, it was very hazy and we could see the clouds streaming by in front of us.

We checked into our motel which was also a camping site (camper vans can park in pre-arranged slots and connect to electrical power and water from the available outlets in each parking slot) and set the room heater to "high" as we made ourselves some hot tea. A board in the reception of the motel prominently stated: "No rooms tonight at Franz", and we sent up silent prayers to Aileen, our B&B hostess at Christchurch: imagine being out on the streets on a day like this. Later, we drove into town and checked out the facilities there. The Franz Josef Glacier settlement is a very small town with a couple of restaurants, inns, motels and other outlets of tourist infrastructure. Our first port of call was the Alpine Adventure Centre where we enquired about the glacier trips and hikes for the next day. It became apparent that the schedules were all weather dependent and the final decision was usually taken just before the hike was supposed to begin. We then walked into a Helimax theatre which shows the same movie over and over again. This documentary was shot in vivid colour and charts the entire eco-cycle of the glacier region beginning with the melting of the ice on the Southern Alps to the formation of glaciers to the rain forests just below them to the wide open Tasman Sea just beyond. From there, it would be a reversal of fortune, so to speak - the water would evaporate and form clouds which would rain heavily on the rain forests! Simply amazing! And now we could figure out why the weather had changed so much ever since we'd crossed the Haast Pass and come on to the other side of the Southern Alps.

Over dinner that night, all that we had on our minds was the weather and major "anxiety" that it may not clear up in time for us to do a hike on the glacier. Luckily for us, it was a clear day the next morning and things looked "bright". We were among the first ones to arrive at the Alpine Adventure Centre after breakfast and the guide pointed to a place in the sky and informed us that while it had cleared up where we were, it was still very cloudy where the glacier was. A pall of gloom descended upon us - it looked like so near and yet so far! Our guide, Diane, however was more optimistic. She told us that it should begin to clear up on the glacier in an hour's time. So, we waited... outside on the sunny verandah of the centre and reflecting on the amazing holiday we'd had in NZ so far. Several short weather-update trips to Diane later, we were told that we'd finally be going for the heli-hike and were asked to report at the heli-hike room. We got snowshoes and socks, ice axes, snow jackets, hats/caps... and then walked to the helipad. When the helicopter showed up, we got aboard (there were 6 of us + pilot) and we were off on the first helicopter ride of our lives. And we were rewarded with the most amazing sight - the sea stretched out to our right and a small beach hugged it along the shoreline. The narrow band of rain forest and watery streams followed the beach. Through this rainforest ran the serpentine road that had brought us here from Haast and further inland beyond the forest lay the shiny bright blue-white icy mass of the glaciers and the snow-capped hills. All that we saw in the movie the previous day was there just waiting for us to see it in person.

A short 5 minutes later, we were dropped on top of the glacier and the helicopter flew away leaving the 5 of us to the mercy of Diane and her glacier skills. But we need not have worried because Diane was an experienced climber and a trained guide. She knew exactly what instructions to give us - how to create steps on the ice, how to get firm footholds in our snowshoes and how to use the ice axe without putting the lives of the 5 other people around us in jeopardy. It was a beautiful spectacle with the sun shining brightly and reflecting off the ultra-white surface of the ice. Sunglasses are essential in a bright place like this - we wouldn't have been able to keep our eyes open for too long without them. We walked around on the glacier and realised that it wasn't at all a smooth even surface that we'd always imagined it to be. In fact, the glacier area is where the ice melts on its way to the sea, and what we saw all around where these huge chunks of ice with unique shapes. We felt like lilliputs walking in a giant freezer cabinet. As the ice moves down the slope it carries with it the moraine produced as a result of friction with the rocky surface of the hills. We were actually witnessing nature at work! Its something we do everyday, but never take notice of it - but here, we were on holiday with no other distractions, and all the time in the world to observe a phenomenon such as this. We took pictures - on crevices, in natural ice-caves, with Diane... we were enjoying the experience of our lives! But all good things do have to come to an end sometime - we huddled inside the helicopter about 2 hours later for our trip back to base camp after what was undoubtedly the highlight of our holiday.

Coffee and snacks followed our return to the Alpine Centre. And later, we fished out the Te Anau flyers from our files to try to see where those missing photographs could be. By now, we were fairly certain that the last time we'd seen them was in Te Anau itself. We called up the motel we'd stayed at, and then called up the pharmacy we remember having visited over there. They didn't have the photos but were kind enough to tell us the phone numbers of the other places in Te Anau that we asked for. We struck paydirt when we called up the Olive Tree Café - they had the photos and they were waiting for us to come and collect them. Logistically, that posed a problem for us, and we asked them if they could post them to us. They agreed to do so provided we sent them the postage. The matter of the photographs didn't end there though. Since we hadn't received the photos more than 2 months after our return to Hong Kong, we called them up again and they said that the postage we sent them was inadequate. We despatched more money, and finally, we did get the negatives that we so desperately wanted from New Zealand.

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