Fifth day 14 June 2014 Saturday

Fresh day fresh start. Leaving the bad luck behind us, we drove off to Franz Joseph. It was a special day for me. For the first time, I will be the vehicle commander in short vcom for my cousin, Raymond. As a non driver, I totally have no idea what I should be doing. Raymond briefed me about what I should be doing and we drove off. I was supposed to inform him if there were any sharp turns or turns that are upcoming as shown on the GPS. I took my role seriously and informed him of every single turn and even to the extend of how many degrees the turns would be or the turn would arched back to left or right. My cousins laughed at me saying that I acted as I was programmed. It was definitely fun being the vcom. For a start, the view was different. I seen road kills and cattle died due to the cold weather. After a long drive with lots of sharp turns, we arrived at our destination. Eugene went to the reception to register for our vehicle to park overnight at the campsite. While waiting for Eugene to settle the administration we found a trampoline and we started to play. It was special and fun to play during winter. A different feel. Once everything was ready, we head off to search for the place where we were suppose to do our glacier hike.

After lunch, we set off for our glacier hike. It was quite fun as we had to take a raft to cross the river in order to start our hike. It was disappointing when we found out the the glacier had melted tremendously which was why we were not able to hike all the way up the glacier. We had to settle to hiking up the glacier for like ten minutes. We went round the glacier to take a different look at the amazing work of nature. I removed my gloves and touch the glacier. Icy, as expected. While walking round I slipped and stepped onto a area covered in mud. The mud was squishy and squashy. I started to put my foot on the mud and stepped on it making it wobble. Eventually, the mud got on to me and my foot was stuck. I had to pulled myself out and return to the safer ground.

After the hike, we walked back to our campsite. We found horses! We stood and watched as the family groomed the horses. One of the horse noticed us and walked towards us. With the permission of the family, we stroked and took pictures with the horse. Having our fun, we went back and prepared dinner. After dinner, we went to look for glow worms! Something that I had always wanted to see. We took a walk in the dark and we were rewarded with the sight of several glow worms. Happy and contented we went back and rest.