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Published: November 13th 2006
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Friday 3rd November Laura - What a lovely hostel, and what a lovely view to wake up to - a blue lake surrounded by mountains! You have to ignore the fact that the dorm room smelt of men and a weirdo with a beard was sitting at the end of Paul's bed. Those things aside, it really was a very lovely place to stay, especially for $22 dollars!
We went for an early morning stroll by the lake, getting there before the coach loads of grannies arrive. The sky was much clearer than yesterday and the mountains looked crisp and clear so we decided to drive up to an observatory at the top of a hill to get a better look. It was 360 degrees spectacular views, but I won't bore you with that. You'll just have to take my word for it!
After amusing ourselves for a while at the petrol station trying to work out how to open the petrol cap (a lovely little woman from the shop came to help us), we drove on towards Mount Cook. En route we stopped at Lake Pukaki to take some photos. The lake was turquoise blue and
gorgeous. It looked like a raspberry flavoured slush puppy (why were they blue and not raspberry coloured?!). Very pretty.
We made it to Mount Cook village around 4pm and checked into the YHA, which by the way, is absolutely amazing (it has mountain views and a free SAUNA!). After dumping our bags there we drove and walked up to Tasman Glacier. It wasn't really what I expected a glacier to look like. Rather than being a white/blue body of ice it largely consisted of a grey lake surrounded by grey rubble. It looked like a quarry. Apparently the glacier is buried underneath. Nevermind though, if you look up there's a pretty big mountain covered in snow!
Back at the hostel we cooked dinner before taking a walk and following some ducks around for a while (we were very curious as to where they were heading as there were no ponds or rivers nearby). There was quite a nice sunset over the mountains so we watched that for a while then went back and had a sauna. The night ended with us drinking hot chocolate in front of a log fire. It really is a hard life.
I
have skimmed over the details but today really was fantastic. We saw some amazing scenery, topped off with the very impressive Mount Cook (the highest peak in all of Australasia). It really is very beautiful here, possibly the nicest place we've been to yet (and that's saying something). Mount Cook village is tiny, with a population of 100, so it feels very special to be here really. If you've seen Lord of the Rings, then you'll know what I mean, because it really does look like that!
Saturday 4th November Paul - Dragged ourselves out of bed for a breakfast with a view. And what a view it is, with Mount Cook towering in the distance and jet blue skies all around today, it seemed like a great day for a hike.
Decided to do the trek to Hooker Valley Glacier as it would give us the best views of Mount Cook and also the chance to stretch our legs over 11km or so. It was shockingly warm considering we were within touching distance of 4 glaciers and a lot of snow so even Laura didn't utter her famous catchphrase today. The views of the
mountains with the snow capped peaks were, quite simply, majestic. I don't think I'm going too far in saying this is the best view we've had on this trip. The crystal clear sky only added to the whole experience and we both really enjoyed the hike.
Four hours later and we sped off from Mount Cook with possibly the greatest view in a rear view mirror ever! The view in front wasn't bad either - rolling green hills, occasionaly topped with snow, and clear blue lakes. It was fabulous. Not to mention the fields upon fields of cute lambs!
After half an hour we stopped at some Maori Rock Drawings. The information said that there weren't many left of these in New Zealand as a lot of them had been removed by various people so it was interesting to see some still drawn onto the rocks. They were quite faded but there were some interesting facts about them nearby so you could understand what it was all about.
A little further up the road we turned off down a random country lane and stumbled across a little gem of a place. It was called Elephant Rocks and
it was fabulous. If you've ever seen the adverts for New Zealand lamb with the rolling green fields then you'll know what it looked like. The Elephant Rocks were a bizarre limestone rock formation stuck in the middle of a field filled with lambs and overlooking a gorgeous view of snow capped mountains and rolling hills. We strolled around taking it all in while I wondered why the lambs ran away when I approached them. Surely they'd want to be cuddled?
Perplexed by all this we watched the sunsetting in the distance before reluctantly driving off. We were heading to Oamaru, a little town on the east coast with some historic buildings and their top attraction, two colonies of penguins - blue penguins and the rare yellow eyed penguins. Exciting stuff. We spent the evening drinking wine in our lovely hostel and generally messing around.
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