We went into Greymouth the next morning (or more specifically Cobden Beach) where there were apparently some waves. We pulled up at the beach to find that there actually were some waves which was surprising as we hadn't been lucky so far. Thomas was beside himself with excitement and immediately took to the water. However, the issue was that the current was formidable and so paddling was impossible and in the end he was unable to get to these perfect waves. He was understandably fairly upset after this and stood at the waters edge looking forlorn and taking photos of the waves. Greymouth was nothing exciting and we now had clean clothes (we definitely weren't clean but at least our clothes were) so we decided to move on and do the long drive down to glacier country. 

This drive took at least 3 hours but we finally reached Franz Josef glacier at about 3pm. We quickly realised it was a lot colder down here (you know since there were lots of mountains and all) something we were not too prepared for. We set off walking the track to the glacier viewpoint along with a lot of other travellers who, like the Tongrario alpine crossing, looked like they were out to conquer Everest. The track was about an hour and a half and fairly easy (albeit freezing cold.) The glacier was an impressive sight (although the photos don't really do it justice) and after a glass of wine (in a restaurant where the food smelled amazing and it took extreme will power to not order the whole menu) we headed to a free campsite (which was about 15km down a gravel road - poor Ned) and was only about 20 minutes from our next destination - Fox glacier.

The next day I managed to drag Thomas on 2 separate walks (normally he can only handle one a day or he gets grumpy.) The first walk took us around Lake Matheson giving impressive views of Mount Cook (the highest mountain in New Zealand) reflected in the lake. The view was definitely worth the walk (and the bitter cold - it was even more cold today and my fluffy socks and hat were finally getting some use.) 

After a breakfast in front of the mountain we moved on to Fox Glacier a little further up the road to walk up to this viewpoint. This glacier looked perhaps a little less impressive than the Franz Josef glacier (in the photos it again looks like a kind of muddy ice puddle - not at all the scene in real life.) The scenery in this mountainous area was seriously beautiful (perhaps even more so when there is more snow) and in the afternoon we moved on again to tackle a very long drive down to Lake Wanaka where we would stay for the evening before going to Queenstown the following day. Ned had a rather strenuous journey and started to make a slightly worrying whistling noise whenever he went uphill, but we made it in one piece and were looking forward to seeing Queenstown.