'Let's meet some Kiwis,' we decided, and set out for a spot of hitch-hiking on New Zealand's South Island. We had 200 miles to travel between Picton and Christchurch, so after taking the ferry across the Cook Strait, we deployed the time-honoured tactic of my girlfriend Fi proffering her thumb while I lurked on the roadside trying to make our baggage look small.
Our first lift came from a retired Geordie engineer called Fred, who took us as far as Blenheim, a mere 15 miles away. Half an hour later we scored another ride, with two Korean guys who worked at a local vineyard. 'How far are you going,' I asked hopefully. 'Er, Seddon,' replied the driver, pointing at the first destination on the road sign. Another 15 miles. So far, so slow travel.
So there we were, two lifts, two hours and zero Kiwis later, only 30 miles down the road. As we gathered our wits to charm another passing vehicle, a bus pulled up with 'Christchurch' on a card in its window. Not in the habit of looking gift-horses in the mouth, we got on.
The next day we took the Trans-Alpine railway across the Southern Alps, the range that forms an icy spine down this island. It was bitterly cold, foggy and sleeting on the east side as we plunged into the six-mile-long Otira tunnel. The western end was all warm sun-kissed lush green valleys beneath snow-capped peaks. I half-expected a bunch of singing nuns to skip over the brow of the nearest hill.
On the valley floor a bright blue river, milky with suspended glacial deposits, wound its way across broad grey gravel beds. On the pastures beside the twisting watercourse young lambs, for it is spring here, head-butted their maternal ewes' udders enthusiastically, like small, woolly Glaswegians.
Further down the west coast we kitted up for an expedition onto the frozen crags of Fox Glacier. We had arrived at the car park in a gorgeous old reconditioned 1978 Bedford bus with immaculate burgundy livery. 'This is John's first time driving since the accident,' our guide, Malcolm, had announced, indicating a colleague, hunched pensively over the steering wheel. 'But it's OK, this is his lucky bus - it's the only one he hasn't crashed yet.'
Malcolm's wit flowed in a manner inconsistent with its arid nature. 'To our left, for the benefit of our drought-stricken Australian friends in the group,' he pointed out the tumbling waters beside the bus, 'this is what we in New Zealand call a river. And for our Dutch contingent, the big rocky thing to our right is a mountain.'
We trudged up the steep glacial valley, its sheer sides scarred by the scouring action of grinding ice. While ushering us swiftly across an active rock fall of broken stone - known affectionately as the Gun Barrels because it shoots out rocks so often - Malcolm indicated a huge, half-buried boulder protruding from the river bed below.
There were deep craters on either side of our path where this megalith had bounced on its way down. 'Rock falls are most likely after heavy rain and seismic activity,' Malcolm grinned as we hurried on nervously in the torrential downpour, remembering last week's news reports of a sizable earthquake in the area.
Donning crampons, we stepped out onto the gritty exterior of the 10-mile river of ice. Like fissured quartz, the glacier was criss-crossed with fractures and cracks where the ice had broken as it 'poured' over ridges in the valley floor beneath. Immense pressure forces had then re-fused the enormous chunks and fragments, creating a splintered, uneven pavement underfoot.
Glistening icy blue moulins (narrow tubular chutes in the glacier) gurgled as rain and melt-water drained into the frigid channels 200 metres below.
Occasional glimpses of sunshine through the rolling clouds instantly illuminated the crystalline surface with myriad twinkling sparkles. It was misty, moody and magical as we rode the 14 billion tonnes of slow-travelling ice down the glacial valley towards the sea.
