Today was a day of firsts - first time in a helicopter and first time on a glacier!! Hugh and I went on our heli hike, a helicopter ride onto the Franz Josef glacier and then hiking across and through it. A perfect day for it, we were told by the guides and were very lucky as some people recently found themselves staying overnight here due to a change in weather conditions!! Flying onto the glacier by helicopter is the only safe way now to be on the glacier as it has melted so much over the years and is now too dangerous to walk up to it. We were well equipped being given boots, jackets, franz josef hats (which we got to keep woo!) trekking poles and crampons for the ice. It was absolutely incredible being taken up high in the sky and walking on the glacier, through all the cravasses, seeing all the beautiful shapes and artic blue colours of the ice. Honestly I've never seen something so magical and wonderful. Due to the glacier moving so much everyday is different so they never know what exactly they will find on the glacier, which makes it a bit more interesting! So that was the incredible part but I had a lot of difficulty too. The cravasses were mostly fine as they weren't too narrow but the last one before we went back in the helicopter was horrendous. Being claustrophobic didn't help as we plunged down inside the glacier which was around 20/25ft. It was stunning looking up and seeing towering walls of ice but also terrifying at the same time to feel so small. I managed to fall over and hurt my leg and also cut my hand from the friction against the ice pulling myself up! (only noticed after when my hand was bleeding!) I was totally overwhelmed with emotion when I got out trying to hike up through the most narrow spaces I've ever experienced, just completely panicked and felt like I couldn't breathe. That was the only awful part though everything else was magic, once in a lifetime experience and would certainly recommend it!