Advertisement
Published: April 2nd 2010
Awoken by the suns morning rays through the makeshift curtains, we rose early to a misty mountain view that gave a magical outlook on town.
With not much to do here, the drive actually being the highlight, we set off first thing to cover ground with an aim to slowly head down south before looping back up north along the west coast ending in the North Island.
Over the next couple of hours we diverted slightly inland crossing into what’s known as Mackenzie country after the legendary James Mackenzie who ran his stolen flocks in this then uninhabited region in the 1840's.
We took the 'scenic' route (frankly I wouldn't class any of New Zealand not scenic) through Mt Cook national park's eastern foothills. Along the way we parked up off road, pulled out our little gas cooker, unfolded the camping chairs and cooked up a mean omelette in the middle of nowhere. It's these small uncomplicated pleasures of the simple life we had begun to live that Jake and I were so happy to be involved in. This is what it's all about. This is why I travel, to feel that taste of freedom and to head into the
unknown with no real time frame or expectations.
Another hour or so into our journey we stopped off at a small family run tea house where we sat beside the open logged fire place chatting to the owner who too had been travelling over the years. It was good to talk with a local and after picking up some pointers on the nearby land and tasting NZ's fine coffee we hopped back in the van and drove along the deserted country roads to lake Tekapo.
The unobstructed views across turquoise water and a backdrop of rolling hills and snowy mountains was picture perfect. Although the day had turned rather grey it gave the spectacular scenary an even more dramatic look. We walked along the river edge giving ourselves a chance to streatch our legs before decending on our last streatch of the days journey to the bottom of Mt Cook.
We parked up in the only exsisting campsite as night set in. The temperature had dropped as we'd been acending up. We prepared our evening meal in the public cabin where we befriended a group of travellers from Oz who kindly offered us a couple of beers they had
been chilling outside in the snow. That night the winds whailed and the rain thudered heaverly on our campers roof.
It wasn't looking the best of conditions for our mountain walk but in true stubborn style we doned on our warm clothes and began our 3 hour hike through the Mt Cook region. As we walked the Hooker Valley Rd track we crossed a couple of impressive swing bridges taking in views of the Tasman glacier, native plant life and jumped in our first encouter with the snow.
Jammy as we'd been so far the sun even decided to shine its pretty face and by the end of the walk we had pealedoff the layers of clothing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.146s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 55; dbt: 0.055s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
