I can't get in on Saturday unless someone cancels. They have the second round of flights which are scheduled a few hours later, but after studying the local weather around here I learn that the cloud always comes during the afternoon no matter how fine the forecast is, so I book in for the next morning. I roll up and guess who's there.. Martin and Alexandra (from the wine tour in Nelson). They spot me and are of course astonished because the're using their own car and have just done the rest of the south island while I've been bunkered down in Franz Josef. After checking in, we walk down the path to the helipad where there is what I believe to be a Squirrel Eurocopter (if my research is right its specifically a AS350 B3 twin turbine). When we climb in the pilot certainly fires up the very disinctive turbine engines one at a time... beautiful... In a few short minutes, the turbines wind up and all checks are go. Our captain (Chris) whisks up into the sky on this perfectly clear day and in no time at all we're flying past Alex Knob on the right and over to the glacier to land about 1/3 from the top. We do a short flight higher up and zig zag our way back down to our landing point and get some fantastic shots from the chopper.
We land on a bit of ice that is in part just a small area of ice helped along by some chipping away with an ice axe on previous journeys. 
At this point I just can't help myself but go snap happy with the camera phone... but instead I get a helping hand from a fellow hiker and let him take a snapshot of me for a change. 
We meet our guide Ti (pronounced just like Thai), a jovial bloke that I think was from Japan. We follow the instructions for putting on our crampons to our boots so that we can stick to the ice like we're wearing rubber on a squash court. After a few basic lessons on being out here, we lead off on our hike up the glacier. 
We lead through some of the more interesting parts of the hike venturing through some ice caves. Here's Alexendra and Martin walking their way through one of the first ice caves. 
Suddenly Ti pops down a hole.. and we all look at each other thinking... is he serious.. does he really think we're going to follow him down there. This hole that goes straight down about 10 feet to a flowing stream below. 
Everything about it looks fragile. It goes without saying that the sides of this cave are ultra slippery.. think of a wet ice cube (with or without crampons on your feet). While we're thinking about this situation (and has Ti completely lost the plot), he pops up about 50-100m away at the other end of the tunnel, and says "is anyone coming?" Ok.. I'm in, possibly motivated (but not really) by Alex seemingly referring to me as a "real couch potato".. I never really figured where she got that idea from but anyway... down I go.
I venture through this extremely small opening which drops vertically down via a very narrow pathway that looks like its made of glass (especially on the lower parts where the water is running through), and you can't help but wonder if this things is going to hold together, keeping in mind that the only way you can get a foothold on anything is by kicking hard into the ice to get your crampons stuck in to get some grip. The cave weaves left and right and up and down while at times having to wade through thigh level freezing water. The motivation to climb up to a temporarily high bit inside the cavity helped along by the freezing water, and what seems to be the possibility that this whole things is just going to fall apart on the next kick. When I climb out back onto the surface, who do I see standing outside the cave still? Alex and Martin! (ahemm.. a real couch potato! - imagine with German accent :o) )After landing on the glacier, I took this 360 degree view of the area.
The chopper coming in to land on the glacier...
... and then take us back into town, and also pick up the afternoon hikers.
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