From Blue Waters to Glaciers

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March 17th 2006

Published: March 20th 2006

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Cas

climbing Mt John

Me at the top

Happy St. Patties day everyone! I hope you had a great one, I know I did. Jo, Jason, Jordan (man I know a lot of boys with names that start with J) Kate and I went on a backpacking weekend to Lake Tekapo and then headed up to Mt. Cook (the highest peek in New Zealand)
Lake Tekapo
It was, once again, a beautiful drive to the lake. It’s about 2 hrs south west of Christchurch. Some have compared it to Tahoe...I don’t know Tahoe has its own beauty you just cant compare to, but it was very beautiful. We kinda illegally camped on the shore of the lake. hehe. There is something adventures about driving down dirt roads that at any min may just end and we would end up in the lake - given it was pitch dark outside. But we found a nice place under the trees and set up camp. The next morning we did a few tourist things like see the monument to herding dogs (Mackenzie's Dog) and the Church of the Good Shepherd. Pretty nice, way to many tour busses for my taste. We then hiked up to the top of Mt. John. It was

Me and Lake Tekapo

Jo took a pic of me VERY early in the morning! evil

a beautiful tramp (that’s what kiwis call hiking I swear!) through the forest and then opening up to see the entire valley. Meet some real nice mountain bikers who actually did the NZ coast to coast!!! It’s an insane 200+ km race.
We then headed west for about 2 more hours to Mt. Cook
Once again a BEAUTIFUL drive, past more lakes and more crazy mountains, unfortunately we drove right into a giant mountain storm 😞 But we were not going to let that stop us! We set up camp in a DOC campsite under the trees again and stripped down to shorts and rain jackets and went for another tramp towards called Kea Point walk. It would have been very very nice if it weren’t pouring down rain and cold! But we made the most of it, luckily I had just bought myself a brand new rain/wind jacket so I was nice and dry...Jordan was not so lucky his garbage bag didn’t work too well.
We ended up calling it quits and going into the one and only restaurant and bar and paid way to much for soup and hot chocolate but it was very very very nice to

Lake Tekapo

I love NZ for its dramatic skys...always

dry off next to the fire read.
During the night I was awoken to the sounds of rustling around the tent, something hitting the tent, pulling on the strings, and then we hear it the terrible screech of the KEA. Otay take a Cockatoo and multiply its call by ten!! These guys were sooooo loud. Come to find out there was a flock of mountain parrots called the Kea that make the camp ground their home. It was kinda comical in the morning when I found one of my jandels up in a tree...thanks! I did get it down.
So we did the Hooker Valley Track on Sunday. Luckily for us we woke up to the sun shinning!! So we had a beautiful day for tramping around the Valley and the surrounding Glaciers!!!! I cannot tell you how beautiful this valley is. In this one valley it houses 22 of the 25 highest peeks in New Zealand! And 4 glaciers!! I am not totally in love with glaciers, I mean I loved them to begin with but now it’s an obsession! There are pictures but they just can’t capture it all! Oh man. Unfortunately my shoes have decided to shrink

The group and the dog

oh we are such tourists

on me so I had the worst blisters in the world so the trip back home was kinda miserable. But if I just looked up it make it 10 million times better.
Till next time! Cheers

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