Mar 2

This morning, we drove to the Frans Josef Glacier parking lot and started walking toward the glacier. It was cool but in bright sunshine. Along the way Susie combed for rocks. The views of this glacier were better than at Fox Glacier. There we saw scads of people walking in groups with gear for the on glacier walks; some had crampons but most just the coats, pants and boots. On the way out we must have met well over 200 tourists in these groups. In addition, the air over the glacier was continuously covered by between 1 and 3 helicopters. Obviously the tourist industry was making up for the time lost to yesterday's rain. All this rain ensures that the rain forest on the west coast gets the water it needs.

The drive to Hokitika was mostly in sun, and we checked into the Jade Factory hostel, which was very nice. We made a tour of the greenstone (pounamu/jade) shops and bought two for the granddaughters and a pendant for Susie. We walked around and then down the beach; there a nice local lady gave Susie a piece of raw greenstone. Later that evening we went to the glow worm dell and saw thousands of glow worms, and a hedgehog.