Lake Matheson and Fox Glacier

For the first time we have had continental breakfast (no eggs or bacon or even croissants!).
We are sure that it is good for our health.
We also received the welcome message from Chris and Ruth that they were grandparents again!
Congratulations to Jonathan and Philomena!
After breakfast, we went into the township to check out the local shops and confirm our afternoon booking for the Glacier walk, one of the highlights of this trip.
Afterwards we drove the short distance to lake matheson for a limber-upo walk in prepration for the afternoon and to see the famous reflections of the mountains in the lake.
Alison made the first viewpoint, but Peter persevered for another 15 minutes and two floghts of steep steps to the View of Views, and obtained this picture for his efforts.

Unfortunately, the waters were not calm enough for any reflections today.
after a snack at the lake cafe, we headed back into town and checked in for our walk. This started at 1.35, with a briefing in the boot room, where we received our boots and crampons.
gthe bus took us the ten minute drive to the start point and then we had a 45-minute climb on shale paths to get the the start of the ice.  There picked up alpenstocks and negotiated an even more treacherous path to get onto the glacier, where we stopped to fit our instep crampons.
progress was slow as the guide had to re-cut the steps in the ice, which had melted away since the morning walkers. The glacier is melting at about 10-25 cm per day in  this hot weather.  It was anything but a starightforward walk, as we had to climb up narrow crevasses and cross small ravines.  After about an hour we reached oine of the highlights, which was the "moulin" where a hole in the ice  has collapsed away to reveal a large ice-bowl with waterfalls down its sides and water flowing out of its base into the inside of the glacier.

Then we walked further up to see a new feature which had appearwde that day - a complete archway in the ice, formed by a moulin collapsing into a crevasse.

Then the long trek back over the ice , down the crevasse and then bacl along the shale tracks - we had the benefit of two hours on the glacier, rather than the advertised one hour, meaning that we did not get back to the base until half past six - a total of five hours.
We received individual certificates to mark our achievment.
 Needless to say we were exhausted - a quick shower and into the restaurant for another excellent meal.
Washing day tomorrow before we head off south to Wanaka.