So to continue, up at 7am (did someone mention we were on holiday), checkout of the superb Alpine Motor Lodge and round to get suited and booted for the glacier walk.

After donning rubber over trousers, hiking boots and socks, you get hats, waterproof coats and crampons, then onto a coach with the rudest of all guides who really has no interest in the fact you just paid 130NZD to go on a tour, because there is one pace, his, oh and his four year old daughter can do this walk better than any of yuse!! Enamoured not.

After a 15 min drive, then hike through a special bush trail that adds 25 mins to the walk, you make it to the fences where you can only pass if with a guide (for your safety and their pockets, cynic). A 10 min walk up an 80 foot gravel mountain (with our guide spurtin on ahead and no interest if anyone has died on the way), we then meet a slow guide who will take the less able of us on a more sedate walk, and one that will tell us things on the way (what a novelty). So useless guide gone off at a sprinting pace with the fool hardy following, on then with our crampons (yes you can actually put crampons on flip flops) and time to get wet. The half day tour is listed as “moderate” difficulty, mmmm, put it this way you need full upper and lower body strength, squeezing through some very narrow crevasses and at times relying solely on the crampons to stay upright.

After 2 hours you start to feel knackered, but the views are pretty spectacular (and no I don’t mean my physique either). Eventually you get to a clearing where you can have a breather and a snack, yes, err no, time to remove your crampons and prepare for the 1 hour hike back to the bus, where Mr Organised can’t even figure out which bus he is driving.

All told a worth while experience, but probably not one we’d repeat.