Day 3: Day 3: Merry Christmas from Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook

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Christmas morning started off as early Christmas should: early, drinking white hot chocalote, eating danish bisquits, and reading the Christmas Story!

Today we drove to Mount Cook, and took many pictures and videos of the beautiful Mackequenzie Valley and Basin we were driving through.

After lunch we started off on a 4 hour hike in the Hooker valley just below Mount Cook, armed with the Droid and the Sony PCM Recorder for some off the track recordings. We also got the chance to play our new instruments at the glacier lake by Mount Cook! It was quite fantastic. The lodge had a Christmas Feast tonight, and we gladly partook after our big day of hikinng.

Until tomorrow's Adventures...

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Since it is Christmas, where we celebrate the Birth of Christ, I thought you all might be interested in a little bit of info on the Christian musical influences beginnings on Maori/NZ culture. **Hymns: The scandal of interfaith music **

First Hymn ever sung: Old Hundreth at Bay of Islands.

The Christian Missionaries had a huge effect on the Maori musical tradition, especially in the sense that it broadened the Maori scale, and 'westernized it to an extent'. One of the early missionaries to the region wrote in his journal “They sang hymns night and day, almost incessently”. Imagine an America that was filled with believers ignited by new religious and worship experience so much so that we sang hymns day and night. =)

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Photos

Clouds
The clouds here are amazing, because of the geograph the wind patterns are crazy.

Creepy Bridge
We had to cross two suspension bridges over the rushing water... I got some great recordings, but my nerves weren't too happy.

Glacial Lake, Hiike Turn-Around
The reward for our efforts!