Mount Aspiring 2

By the time we'd finished eating and had rinsed the plates the sun was out again. I'd also looked at the information board once more and seen that, in addition to the scary warnings, it said that the first ford was the most difficult one to cross of the 9 which lay between us and the Raspberry Creek car park. So we took courage, crossed the ford again, and did not stop this time until we reached the end of the road.
There we discovered a car park and DoC campsite in a beautiful alpine valley and set off on the walk.

 First we walked through meadows beside a river that was clattering along in full flood with rainwater and snow melt from the surrounding mountains. Then we crossed a bridge suspended over the river and climbed steeply upwards through forest, with the river now rushing downhill and around gigantic boulders, for about 2 hours before arriving on a plateau right under the glacier.

We stood and gazed, awe-struck, for as long as we dared before retracing our steps to the car park.
The sun had remained out for the whole of our walk, and although low cloud skimmed the mountain tops occasionally it didn't hang around to obscure the glacier. While thinking how lucky we were to be doing the walk in such good weather, I remembered that it was 28 February, the day we used to celebrate as Dad's birthday when his actual birthday - 29 February - didn't exist in any year. I couldn't help hoping that perhaps he was  watching over us and keeping the clouds away.

We were tempted to remain in the campsite for the night because it was in such a stunning setting but we wanted to get the tedious journey back along the rough road over and thought of the panic about being cut off that we would feel if it should start to rain heavily during the night so we left at once.
An hour and a half later, having driven back down the road at the same slow pace as before, we reached the tarmac road again. Although Tim, and everything he carries, was well and truly all shook up, he made it - with no obvious ill effect, apart from being full of dust.
Well done Tim. I'm glad we didn't write you off as being past it.  There are still some adventures in you yet.