Days 99-101 - Kaikoura - Mount Cook Nat Park
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
64
70
Trip End
Mar 27, 2008
Aoraki Mount Cook National Park,
New Zealand
Sunday, March 2, 2008
It was a good seven/eight hour drive past some beautiful lakes. We went past lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki which the campsite was situated beside. It was a cloudy day but the colour of the water in the lakes is the most stunning ultra-blue colour we have ever seen.
Imagine this picture-postcard, gorgeous lake with the mountains in the background, you cannot help but just gaze in awe of just how beautiful it is. The blazing turquoise colour is due to 'rock flour' (sediment) in the water. This so-called flour was created when the lake's basin was gouged out by a stony-bottomed glacier moving across the land's surface. With the rock-on-rock action grinding out fine particles that ended up being suspended in the glacial melt water. This sediment gives the water a milky quality and refracts the sunlight beaming down, hence the brilliant colour, even on a cloudy day. What can I say; you have to see it to believe it - it is just beautiful.
The campsite was very easy to find on the main road and the first thing that hit us as soon as we got out of the van is the cold. There is a breeze, not much of one but it is biting. We expected this in the mountains though, it is a lovely site with loads of little hidey-holes to put our van. There was another spaceship here and we parked beside it. Dean tried to chat to the bloke from the spaceship, he wasn't sure which nationality he was, (maybe Swiss or German judging by the accent he couldn't quite place). Whatever, anyway for some reason he didn't seem very friendly so we decided against asking about a DVD swap and left him alone. It was quite late so we went into the kitchen to prepare a meal.
There is a dining room/TV room just off the kitchen. This is where we spent our evening, gosh it was freezing when it dropped dark. We took some beers and wine over to the dining room and played cards all evening. Dean beat me by quite a large margin but it was good fun and at least it was warm in there. There is a big log fire in this room which wasn't lit but there are piles and piles of logs stacked outside and a large basket-full inside on the hearth. When everyone else went to bed and there was only us left in there, we tried to light it but there was a big pile of ash at the bottom. It looked like it hadn't been used or cleaned out for ages and we couldn't see anything around to clean it ourselves. It's a shame, all the firewood everywhere, it is autumn in New Zealand now and particularly here, you can tell. At least we were lovely and warm cuddled up under our duvet in the van but we got told off again about our DVD. It is so deathly silent here, the sound carries. We apologised and went to sleep and we both did sleep well despite the cold outside.
When we awoke the next morning we discovered it had snowed in the night (I told you it was cold). Not where we are but about 1,000 ft up - the mountains were covered in a fresh blanket of snow and it looked lovely in the morning sunlight. The first snow of the year seems to have prompted the staff to light the fire and it was lovely and cosy in that room eating breakfast. Seems like a weird time of day to light the fire though, there were only us in there.
After breakfast we set off to the Mt Cook village which is about 20km further up the road. We want to do a walk today and are going to have a go at the 'Hooker valley track' which is a four hour steady walk through the Hooker valley to a lake and the terminus of the Hooker glacier. The view of Mt Cook and the surrounding mountains are absolutely awesome driving up to the village, especially with the fresh snow. I have always wanted to see snow-clad mountains up close and now I have. It was worth the long drive here just to see this picture-postcard beauty.
The air is quite fresh but the sun is shining, so is the perfect weather for a walk. The Hooker valley track is nice and easy with lots of photo opportunities along the way. We had to cross two swing-bridges which I didn't like very much, they are high above a surging torrent of water and it bounces when you walk on it - creepy. I went across as quickly as possible and Dean was laughing at me.
Along the way we stopped at a lake to take some photographs and were lucky enough to see an avalanche high up on Mt Cook itself. Well, I say we - Dean saw it and by the time I figured out where I was supposed to be looking, all I saw was a puff of white. I could hear the rumbling though - I hope nobody was up there at the time. There was an avalanche warning sign along our walk, telling us of danger of avalanche past this point from May-Nov. I expect it is gorgeous here in the winter, I was talking to the cleaner this morning and she told me that they get 3 and 1/2 foot of snow here around June. It snows all day, every day for a month and the roads are cleared every morning and evening so that everybody can get to work. It's hilarious to think back of England, where it only has to lay a few centimetres of snow and the whole country comes to a standstill and everybody dashes to the nearest supermarket to stock up on food, just in case. If we had 3 and 1/2 foot of snow that stuck around for a whole month, it would probably be declared a national disaster. But having said that, there is so little traffic on the roads here, it is surely much easier to cope.
We eventually reached the lake we were aiming for and it doesn't look much like the end of a glacier although you can see that is what it is. It is grey and looks like rock. The lake itself is a kind of milky colour and it has an iceberg in the middle of it, interesting. It had dropped cold now because the sun has disappeared behind the mountain and we put our woolly hats on for the walk back. It is a lovely walk to do and such a beautiful valley, we have thoroughly enjoyed it. We stopped at the Alpine Memorial on our way back, a lot of young people have been cut down in their prime here in these mountains. We read the memorial messages, most were in their twenties and were taken by avalanche but some died from falls. The peaks around here are dangerous enough to challenge the most experienced of mountaineer's and this is where Sir Edmund Hillary did his training for tackling Mt Everest.
We were starving when we got back and cooked up a huge stir-fry with rice. We spent our evening playing cards in front of the log fire and drinking. Everyone goes to bed so early here, it was just the two of us in there by 10.45pm and Dean took advantage of our solitude and piled a whole heap of firewood on the fire. It was like a sauna in there by the time we went to bed. We had to keep nipping outside to cool down! We're off on our travels again tomorrow but I'm so glad we came to see Mt Cook. We had ummed and aaahed about because it is a big detour and not really near anything else we want to see but in the end it has been so worth it - those views!
