A Visit to the Cloud Piercer

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Day 533 (12.09.08)

After a leisurely morning we hit the road in the blazing sunshine in search of Mt Cook/Aoraki not too far up the road from where we’d been staying. We made a quick stop at the local salmon farm on one of the impossibly turquoise lakes of the area. We had great fun feeding the fish and bought some smoked salmon for our last dinner with Jean and Mike who we’d sadly be separating from the following day.

As we drove along the shores of the stunning Lake Pukaki (which we’ve now decided is our favourite lake in NZ) we were lucky enough to see the summit of Mt Cook in the distance living up to it’s Maori name Aoraki which means Cloud Piercer. We stopped at several places to marvel at the mountain ahead and the snowy mountains surrounding us on what seemed like all sides.

When we arrived at the Mt Cook township we found out about a couple of walks that we could do in the area and set off quickly on the Hooker Valley trail in the hope of a really close view of Mt Cook before the clouds rolled over it. We crossed a couple of swing bridges until we saw the very bottom of the mountain and the rest of it covered in cloud. We waited for a time and the cloud clear a lot but we weren’t to be given the full show today. Pleased with our earlier sightings we weren’t disappointed and headed back for our next walk to the Tasman Glacier viewpoint.

A fairly steep climb was well worth it as we passed the blue lakes (that were actually green) and crested a hill to see the glacial lake and terminal face of the glacier which had left glacial icebergs floating in the lake - incredible. With the vast areas of surrounding moraine and no animal life to be seen it made for an almost otherworldly sight.

Back in the car we made the journey back down Lake Pukaki and were treated to some excellent reflections in the still surface. With the sun beginning to set we took a quick detour to the other side of the lake to see breathtaking reflections of the evening sky in the lake.

We’d liked Buscot Station so much we felt it was a fitting place for our last night together as a Hayward foursome and after another truly fantastic day we settled in for another excellent dinner and evening.

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