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We were only staying at Fox Glacier for 2 nights as trekking the glacier is the only thing there to do really. So we arrived, found our hostel (back to hostels again unfortunately), had some dinner and got some rest for the next days trekking.
The first thing we had to do was get all the right gear for our walk, which included waterproof trousers and jacket, gloves, warm hat, boots and cramp-ons. We put on all our kit minus the cramp-ons and set off for our full-day walk. We were in a group of 7 people plus our guide (Troy), and once we arrived at the glacier we first had an hours walk through a rainforest to reach the point at which we could hop on. We were showed how to put on and use our cramp-ons, given a walking stick with a metal spike on it and led onto the ice. The guide led us around, cutting "steps" in the ice with a pick axe at the trickier steeper parts. We stopped for lunch at a convenient rocky part and ventured further up. The weather took a turn for the worse and we all got pretty wet but we continued. We ended up walking about 6km up the glacier (its approximately 13km long) which was tiring to say the least. Walking in cramp-ons is like walking on concrete in football boots, and both of us rolled over on our ankles many times, but no lasting damage was done. Although i wacked my head very hard in one of the caves which left a nasty bump for a couple of days! We reached as high as we could before walking 6km back down and through the rainforest again.
After 6 or 7 hours wearing walking boots and cramp-ons, our trainers felt like heaven! We got some dinner and watched a bit of TV before crashing out very tired.
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