Yet another early start today, this time to maximise the time we could spend in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, just a 1 hour drive from Omarama. Originally our plan was to spend the next few days in Dunedin, before heading back to Christchurch to catch our plane home. However, after talking to a few kiwis, and fellow NZ travellers, we decided to scrap the original plan so we could spend today in Mt Cook, and by golly I’m glad that we did. Not only did it cut down our driving time considerably, but Mt Cook was yet another fantastically beautiful place.
When we first arrived, the weather wasn’t great, with a fair bit of cloud about covering the mountains, which meant we had only occasional glimpses of snow (and ice) as we made our way to the NP. With a bit of time though, the clouds began to clear away to give some pretty nice views. Given our limited time (and tramping experience), we opted for a short 3.5 hour walk up the Hooker Valley, apparently the most popular of the walks at Mt Cook. The walk makes its way up through the Hooker Valley, passing probably 5 or so glaciers on our left on the way up, culminating with the Hooker Glacier, Hooker Lake, and a big mountain at the end. I say a big mountain as Laura and I had quite a debate as to what mountain this actually was – to begin with, the peak was shrouded with cloud, which made identification more difficult. After much debate, we finally decided that the mountain was in fact, Mt Cook. So there you have it, we saw the tallest mountain in NZ, and even saw some glaciers flowing down. It was pretty amazing, it’s just a bit of a shame the weather wasn’t just that little bit better, then it would have been fantastic.
As I mentioned earlier, this walk should have been 3.5 hours...it took us 5! Now, this isn’t because we are both ridiculously slow walkers, but more due to the fact that we are obsessive photographers! On the way down, we must have stopped every 10 minutes or so to photograph some plant or other. We are clearly just too cool for school! I should state that I took some pretty good ones so please wait until you commence the mockery! No camera problems to speak of – but my filters remain firmly stuck together.
Laura drove again today –I’m still alive!!
When we first arrived, the weather wasn’t great, with a fair bit of cloud about covering the mountains, which meant we had only occasional glimpses of snow (and ice) as we made our way to the NP. With a bit of time though, the clouds began to clear away to give some pretty nice views. Given our limited time (and tramping experience), we opted for a short 3.5 hour walk up the Hooker Valley, apparently the most popular of the walks at Mt Cook. The walk makes its way up through the Hooker Valley, passing probably 5 or so glaciers on our left on the way up, culminating with the Hooker Glacier, Hooker Lake, and a big mountain at the end. I say a big mountain as Laura and I had quite a debate as to what mountain this actually was – to begin with, the peak was shrouded with cloud, which made identification more difficult. After much debate, we finally decided that the mountain was in fact, Mt Cook. So there you have it, we saw the tallest mountain in NZ, and even saw some glaciers flowing down. It was pretty amazing, it’s just a bit of a shame the weather wasn’t just that little bit better, then it would have been fantastic.
As I mentioned earlier, this walk should have been 3.5 hours...it took us 5! Now, this isn’t because we are both ridiculously slow walkers, but more due to the fact that we are obsessive photographers! On the way down, we must have stopped every 10 minutes or so to photograph some plant or other. We are clearly just too cool for school! I should state that I took some pretty good ones so please wait until you commence the mockery! No camera problems to speak of – but my filters remain firmly stuck together.
Laura drove again today –I’m still alive!!
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