Blogs from Mount Cook National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 19

Not a particalury exciting day today - just a shed load of driving; although being new zealand the landscape is constantly changing so keeps things pretty interesting. Late afternoon we finally arrived at Mt Cook National Park where just for a few moments where we lucky enought to see a glimpse of Mt Cook's summit! Then it became shrouded in cloud once more as did most of the other high mountains. The whole area is amazing. As we the region is approached you are greeted by a huge turquoise coloured lake; as you get closer this is replaced by a large river delta where scree ridden valleys and huge cliffs meet the edges. After this snow covered mountains, glaciers, and moraine are met. The heavens opened - we spent the evening in the campervan!... read more

we left te anau for twizel, a small mountain town near the base of mount cook. the town doesn't have much to offer, other than being an affordable stop. we had changed our plan to just the one day at mount cook, to buy some time before our flight out on the 18th. the drive up to the mountain only took about 40min. it's kind of strange. it's a completely flat plain leading up to the range, and then the mountains come up out of nowhere. luckily for us it was a clear and sunny day. we were even able to see the peak. the visitor centre was closed by the time we got there, so we choose a short 2hr hike that would let us get back to twizel by 8pm -- time enough to ... read more

We landed in Christchurch Tuesday morning after first landing in Aukland. The flights were no problem, we each got about 7-8 hours of sleep and the time change adjustment wasn't bad at all. We hopped into our rental car and were on our way. We had some terrifying moments starting off-they drive on the wrong side of the road and the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car... Immediately upon exiting the airport we had to navigate two roundabouts from hell. Here is a sample dialog from the second roundabout: Rob-”Turn left here” Jim-”Where,here?” Rob-”No,here,left! Left!” Jim-”Dude! I can't go left there are cars coming!” Rob/Jim-”Oh Shi_!” Rob-”Pull over!” (note-we made two complete turns around the roundabout) (lots of screaming at each other....some more screaming) After another complete turn on the roundabout and ... read more

me and Lucy arive in mount cook after a long drive and one night stop over at lake tekapo. this was a nice little hostel beside the lake which had a piano and guitar, woo i was able to play a guitar for the first time in ages. even if it was freezing outside. the next morning we got up and continued our journey up to Mount Cook. on the dirve up we stopped and desided to do a small walk, this turned out to be more fun then first expected. we found a lake, The blue lake to be completely honest. but its wasn't blue it was white.....the whole lake was completely frozen over. it was so thick we could walk on it...carefully though....the very edges kept breaking but when you got further over the ... read more

We did not have time to go down the South Island west coast to see the famous glaciers and Fjordland or even Queentown were also too far away. Instead we spent more time on the east side of the Southern Alps, around Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki, and Mt. Cook. The weather was as good as it can be. We had great views across the turquise green water of Lake Pukaki, a beautiful sunset, and a clear and sunny visit to New Zealands highest mountains, Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman. We had a really good times those days. Always in the nature under open sky, coming before the first tourists come, staying longer than anybody else, enjoying sunsets made only for us. And not to forget all the nice camping dinners with red wine and lots of ... read more