I'd been planning to do a glacier walk since we first arrived in New Zealand. I'd read the leaflets and websites over and over but still had two choices to make. 1) Which glacier? Fox or Franz Josef 2) Which walk?

I was initially planning on doing a heli-hike which involves going up in a helicopter and landing high up on the glacier and doing a 2 hour walk. But at $399 it seemed a little excessive. With my knee improving I decided on the half day walk at $89 and to ease the effort I choose the Fox Glacier as it's less steep.

You may be wondering why Richard hasn't been mentioned. Well, he sat this one out because his accident record on snow and ice is appalling with one dislocated shoulder and one broken arm in the last three years.

On the way to Fox we had stopped on Monday night at our second DOC campsite. This was on the northern part of Lake Wanaka, right on the water's edge with superb views and clear blue water.

Most DOC sites don't have showers, a flush toilet is a luxury, so we'd been wondering how people who stay at these sites have a shower. An hour or two after settling into the campsite we found out. A guy opposite got out of his van with swimming trunks on, put his head in a bucket of water and rubbed shampoo into this hair. Then reached for his solar shower which was propped up on top of his van, rinsed his hair and washed the rest of his body. Shortly after, a guy adjacent to us stripped down to his underpants, rubbed soap over himself and rinsed off with a tub of water.

It was a real laid back hippy campsite with people playing guitars and vans parked randomly around the camp, rather than in an orderly fashion. A completely different atmosphere to the usual holiday parks we've stayed in, so I don't think it will be our last DOC site. However, we did wake up to a flurry of sand flies and couldn't wait to get out the camp quick enough; apparently they are rampant on the west coast and especially near water. Good-o as we are spending the next couple of weeks travelling up the west coast.

Our journey from Lake Wanaka to Fox on Tuesday was pleasantly picturesque. It helped by being another glorious sunny day. We drove through twindly roads with steep forest covered mountains all around. Crossing over the bright blue coloured rivers and the alpine fault line which has a high probability of rupturing in the next 40 years.

On our way we passed through Haast. Thankfully we hadn't planned to stay. There was nothing, not even a Vodafone mobile signal. No idea how people live in these prehistoric towns.

We swiftly drove through the town to get to Fox early enough to book my glacier walk and have a much needed shower.

At 9am on Wednesday, Richard and I trotted off to the Fox Glacier Centre for me to check in and get kitted out with walking boots and crampons (metal spiky things you strap round your boots when on the ice).

After a slight delay I got on the bus with the other 29 walkers and off we went on the 10 minute journey to the Fox Glacier car park. The first thing I noticed was the sheer scale of the glacier, it was a pretty impressive sight.

We randomly got split up into two groups of 15 and started the trek with our guide. The guide was soon to point out the pile of ice at the foot of the glacier which only last week killed two men who had gone past the danger signs and got crushed by an overhanging piece of glacier which fell off as they were taking photos. One of the bodies is still under the ice and is unlikely to be recovered because of the danger. We were all quite thankful we were with a guide.

One thing the leaflets failed to say was that although this glacier was less steep than the Franz Josef, you have to walk up more than 700 steep steps before you get to the part of the glacier you walk on, and then back down 700 steep steps. Luckily my ibuprofen had started to kick in and my knee was holding up fine. We walked up the narrow stepped pathways through the rain forest crossing over small streams, all was going well but I found the slow pace frustrating and more effort than normal. Every 15 minutes or so we'd stop until we made it up to a platform which gave great views over the glacier.

We then traversed down a stony pathway, fixed our crampons to our boots, picked up a wooden pole to help with stability on the ice, and made our way onto the glacier. Pathways and steps had been axed into the surface so we were walking on crushed ice; it reminded me of a blue slush puppy after you'd taken a few sucks from your straw.

The ice colour was a mixture from clear to blue to dirty grey. The dirty grey bits are from the rocks around the glacier. They are ground down by the glacier into rock flour. Rivers and lakes near the bottom of this glacier and the other two glaciers we've seen in New Zealand are a milky grey colour. As the rivers and lakes get further away from the glacier and the rock flour settles, you then get that bright, stunning milky blue colour.

We spent just under an hour on the glacier, enough time to walk a little way and take a few photos. I didn't feel it was enough time though and left me a little disappointed. I would have preferred to have walked there a lot quicker and spent more time on the ice.

Katy