Playing Hide And Seek With The Clouds

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Geo: -43.7283, 170.1

To see the top of New Zealand, also known as Mount Cook, you will most probably drive past Lake Pukaki in the MacKenzie District, a stunning blue glacial lake with an incredible view of Mount Cook asserting it's dominance in the distance. Well that was the theory anyway.
It's a bit hit and miss with the weather, you either see the whole mountain or the mountain covered in clouds and this time we got the clouds.
We decided on a two night trip to Mount Cook Village and drove from Christchurch in the parents car with a stop off at Lake Tekapo and a walk up the Mount John Observatory Hill. The weather was warm and upon getting to the top of Mount John it got very windy and even pushed a strong man like myself around. The lake was a magnificent blue colour and we sat on the edge while enjoying lunch with a view.

Continuing a further 45km through the desolate MacKenzie Country the magical Lake Pukaki presents itself, although the blue in the lake was not as impressive as Lake Tekapo due to the clouds rolling in and stopping the sun from working it's magic.
We also stopped off at another view point along the road to Mount Cook Village which also enabled us to get right to the lakes edge. The water was a lot warmer than I thought but I didn't care for a dip anyway.
Pushing on we picked up two hitch-hiking backpakers and entered the very small village of Mount Cook in cloudy weather.
It took a while to find out where the actual campsite was which is out of town. For $6 per person per night regardless of campervan or tent, I thought was a pretty good deal and we were a stones throw away from the walks in to the hills.

The Campsite looked quite busy and we managed to find a spare patch to set our tent up. We also didn't realize that there aren't any supermarkets or food stores, only a small section in one place, so we were very limited in the amount of food we had without having to pay high prices in the restaurants. We finished our half eaten sandwiches for dinner followed by a bit of chocolate and chips.
Waking up to rain hitting the tent didn't give us much of a reason to get out of bed in a hurry, but the water condensation making the bottom of my sleeping bag wet did.
Looking out and seeing clouds very low and with no sight of stopping was both annoying and frustrating as we came to do some walks and to see the mountains and glaciers themselves, but at this rate it didn't look like any of that was going to happen.

We drove to the information center and waited there for a little bit, looking at the impressive display on the history of climbing Mount Cook as well as other interesting exhibitions on rescues, weather patterns and bird and plant life.
We weren't about to waste a day doing nothing so we decided to take advantage of a small gap in the rainy weather and drive to the Tasman Glacier Walk which was an 8km drive then a short walk up the hill for an amazing view over the Tasman Glacier Lake with the glacier in the distance which looks more like dirt than ice, but the ice is underneath. The view looking down the valley towards Lake Pukaki was also impressive and we sat while having a bite to eat.
Icebergs were present and the opportunity to Kayak on the lake looked interesting too.
The size of the whole glacier and mountains dominate the landscape as things look smaller or closer than they appear.
We took a small walk to a few of the lakes which have dried up considerably and were apparently blue and swim-able but now sport a green tinge and not the most popular swimming hole around.

We headed back to the village and campsite and decided what to do. The forecast wasn't looking any better for the following day and we were going to be staying another night for further walking. In the end we decided we would go back to Christchurch but do the Kea Point track first even though it was still raining.
At this point it had basically been raining all night and up until 1pm with no stop in sight. We could hardly make out the Mueller Glacier but we pushed on to the Kea Point track for about an hour return in the rain, sporting my trendy poncho.
The walk was great and I am sure would be even more amazing when clear. Kea Point was also spectacular with the overhanging Mueller Glacier to one side and two glacial carved valleys converging in to the one.
The rain didn't offer to many chances for a quick snap so we were soon on the trail back to the car where we packed the gear up and hit the road straight for Christchurch.

The weather was fine as we were driving back but the way the weather happens over the mountains means that Mount Cook and the close surrounds will endure most of the rain and Lake Pukaki and the Mackenzie Country retain the fine weather.
It was quite disappointing, but in the end the best decision and even more disappointing when I drove off with my four day old, $60 sunglasses on top of the car and within 5 minutes of returning to the scene of the crime, they had already been picked up by one of the few cars driving past.
But one of the advantages of being a "local" is that there are always opportunities to come back, hopefully with better weather, so with that in mind we drove back home to a feast on the table instead of chips and chocolate.

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