Day 4: (Tuesday 14/03/06) This was our "spare" day and we had decided to climb to the Cascade Saddle. Some of the Australians had been up Monday afternoon after coming over the Rees Saddle, but we had all day to do this at a more leisurely pace.

The morning began with a red sky, the shepherd/sailor's warning as it proved. In fact it wasn't really red, Cathy captured a very yellow sky and the subsequent few days remained absolutely fine. Maybe there should be another line... "Yellow morning fate is another day to wait"

We re-crossed the swing bridge and headed up the Dart valley on the Cascade track. After a while this dropped to the valley floor and past the hanging Hesse Glacier

As we passed the Hesse glacier we were treated to two separate ice avalanches. However the weather then deteriorated and half of us decided just to visit the Dart Glacier face while an intrepid four continued up towards the pass.

The crazy four managed to obtain some better views of the Dart Glacier but were driven back by wind and rain. The rest of us found the glacier face provided shelter as well as some good photo opportunities.

Heading back down the valley floor presented us with some rare and interesting sights - ice sculptures, moss/herb/fungi gardens, colourful lakes and ponds etc so we didn't regret our decision.

There were "little people" out there....sometimes obvious like the gnome on the rock John B is bowing to (below left), other times like the tiny elf having a pee in the "rock carpet" above.

As we returned to the Dart Hut, the rain largely held off but everything was wet, setting the scene for my next accident, a dramatic slip on wet rock, again landing on my left hand swapping a layer or two of epithelium with the deep ochre of the rock. Now I know how to say "ochre", not quite "owch", more like "oh-sh#t!!". Luckily, the ochre doesn't create a permanent tattoo.

About this time I began to think about getting some new boots as not only was the tread proving more slippery on wet rocks, the back was becoming very effective at rubbing away skin over my calcaneus. Come to think of it, they were purchased in 1998 after the Heaphy so they had lasted quite well.