Hike: 16km

We were both really excited about today as we were going to do a "Nimble Fox" day hike on the Fox Glacier and spend the day off the saddle!

We had brekkie then bought a some lunch to take onto the glacier before checking in and getting our gear. We were all isssued with big woolly socks, leather hiking boots, crampons and alpenstocks (alpine sticks). Cool. We were bussed up to the start of the walk in very old Bedford buses (and would you belive sat next to two lads from Guernsey!) and then continued up by foot to the start of the glacier. We had to walk for a couple of miles or so up the side of the glacier before we could go across and onto the ice. At this point wedonned our crampons and were invincible! They're magic, you don't slip at all on the ice. We trudged around for a while before sitting down and freeezing our butts on the ice for lunch. After the break we went through a cave and climbed up the glacier for views and adventure. After going up we came back down towards the lower end of the glacier where the exploring was more fun as there were many crevasses to walk through. Our guide Jared (an Aussie) was being assessed by Jim (a Kiwi) so he was quite nervous and I don't think he had so much fun! At one point two groups and two guides were watching him cut steps with his axe, poor guy.

It was very beuatiful on the ice, with many blues and whites and cool patterns but was surprisingly tiring! We were both ready to get off the ice and sit down at the end of the day. All up were walking from 10:30 to 5, mostly on ice. After we'd parted with our equipment we made a bee line for Cooks Saddle Cafe and Saloon for the burgers that were highly recommended by our Sydney friends. The burgers were just the ticket, my venison burger was infact four slabs of venison covered in plum sauce, mmmmm. We had an interesting debreif as Scott had done a day hike on the Franz Josef Glacier in 2000 and it was one of the very best things he did on his travels. We both felt this day wasn't quite as wow for many reasons - we were treating it as a rest day and last time Scott was itching to do some exercise, the sun didn't catch Fox at all, Franz is in the sun, Franz had more crevasses, Claire always has cold feet...But we did have a great a day and it was an experience to remember and glaciers move and change all the time so it is impossible to compare the two, especially with eight years gap. The burgers rocked though.

We went to bed really early to prepare ourselves for a pre-dawn get up to see Lake Matheson and the famous (in NZ) View of Views. Our arrangement was that when the alarm went off I would check out the weather and let Scott know whether it was worth the early rise and cycle to see the view. I wanted to see it but Scott, who had seen it before, was secretly hoping the weather would be bad and he could get an extra our in bed!