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Published: March 29th 2007
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Omarau Backpackers It took us the best part of a day to get from Dunedin (blog:
Otago Peninsula) to Twizel, which is 50km from Mount Cook. We stayed at Omarau Backpackers. Again we had a fantastic open fire burning, which Jason kept adding log after log, until it was roaring so much we were roasting. We ended up having the place to ourselves on the first night, well almost, we had a mouse accompanying us in the kitchen. Initially we had just planned to stay at this place for one night and then move to Glenntanner Park, which was closer to Mt Cook. However, when we arrived at Glentanner and checked into our cabin, we found out that they had failed to mention that their shared kitchen had absolutely no pans or kitchen utensils. Jason was particularly annoyed, pointing out that we were travelling for 4 and half months so would hardly carry a kitchen around with us! As they only had a rubbish cafeteria on site and there wasn't anything else around, we decided to walk out and went back to Omarau. We turned up on the doorstep to fortunately find there was a room for us.
Lake Pukaki There is a whole series of dams in this part of New Zealand (MacKenzie Country) which store/manage a whole host of blue waters. We didn't quite manage to fit in a proper visit to one, but passed and stopped at a few on the journey to Twizel. However, we did manage to fit in a visit to the extremely milky-blue, huge lake of Pukaki on the way to Mt. Cook. It looked lovely as the sun shone down on it, very peaceful. Again, the colour was due to the glacial ice melt water and grinding of the rock that fills it.
The cloud piercer Again, Mt. Cook (also known by it's Maori name, Aoraki : "Cloud Piercer") stubbornly refused to reveal itself to us. Its veil of cloud looked like it'd only worsen as the day progressed. Rain was forecast for the next few days. It was a shame because you should get spectacular views of it as you drive up from Punakaki lake. The views of other peaks of the Southern Alps were pretty impressive anyhow - although Mt. Cook is the tallest, there's plenty of other snow-capped mountains not too much shorter.
We arrived at the
Come out, come out where ever you are...!
Mt. Cook insists on hiding behind the cloud...again. It is somewhere in the v of the mountains ahead. Honest. visitor centre in Mt Cook without sight of the mountain itself. We went to decide which walk to do and establish exactly which bit of cloud Mt. Cook was hiding behind to get our bearings. In the centre we discovered a memorial book dedicated to those that had died on or near Mt Cook. We found to our horror, that a girl who was celebrating her 30th birthday by climbing up Mt Cook was killed just a few days before we arrived by falling rocks. It was a shocking reminder of how unstable some of the natural beauty of New Zealand is. So far this year, four people have died. Very sobering. We later visited the memorial to all those that had died, where some flowers and a letter lay in her memory.
We did the Hooker Valley walk, which took us across a couple of swingbridges (which I'm getting better at crossing, hopefully losing my fear) to the Hooker glacier. Unfortunately it started to rain, so we didn't spend long at the glacier but managed to take some photos of the ice floating on the stream and lake in front of the glacier. It's a very scenic walk,
A view from the Hooker Valley Hut
Hooker Valley Walk, Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park. but would have been out of this world if we'd had the view of Mt. Cook that the weather denied us. Nevermind, we'd been lucky on the other side to capture Mt. Cook from Lake Matheson when at Fox (Blog:
Fox Glacier & Lake Matheson).
With the last minute change in our accommodation, we also decided with much reluctance to shorten our stay at Mt. Cook and head for Christchurch a day earlier. The weather wasn't set to improve and we had plenty to arrange before heading off to Singapore - not least, a bed for the night.
Lake Tekapo On the way to Christchurch from Twizel, we had one last amazingly blue lake to take in : Tekapo. This is also home to the tieing the knot hotspot that is the Church of the Good Shepherd, whose setting against an almost saphire blue lake and the Southern Alps is breathtaking. There's not a great deal to the town itself, but it's quaint enough.
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