Mt. Cook

We left Queenstown and drove the 3 hours up to Mt.Cook. On the way Hannah called and we were able to have a catch up on the phone. Edward took over the driving so I could talk on the phone. Unfortunately we were cut off a few times in "low spots" so we kept having to call each other back! I will not forget when we were cut off for the second time I was waiting for us to drive over this one hill and all of a sudden there it was....A beautiful turquoise blue lake with snow covered mountains in the background! This was our first glimpse of Mt. Cook and it was breath taking. We pulled over onto the side of the road to take photo's. The water was so turquoise colored and the sky so blue and the snow covered mountains, a real picture of beauty.

The rest of the drive up to the mountain was gorgeous as we followed the lake all the way there.



When we arrived we found a place to stay at the backpackers place. A hotel room with a view of the mountains for $100 as opposed to the Lodge room for $230. These were our only options as there is nothing else there, just a Lodge with a restaurant, a pub, an activities center which consisted of a small planetarium/movie screen, and a backpackers hostel.

In the evening we watched a documentary on Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. It was quite interesting. Later when it became dark we went on a star gazing tour. This turned out to be really good as we both learned a lot. We were able to see many stars through a telescope and also jupiter with 4 of it's moons and identify many of the constelations. The southern hemisphere can see stars that we cannot see in the northern hemisphere. Here we were able to see Betelguese (sounds like beetle juice) which is a massive sun that we aren't able to see from the north. It was really cool!

Betelguese is the low bright orange star
to the left of the mountain in the middle

The next day we went hiking (again!). Our guide from Franz Joseph Glacier recommended the Hooker Valley hike so that is what we did. It was a 3 hour hike that took us over a swing bridge which I was almost blown over due to the crazy strong winds! Along the way we followed a glacial stream all the way to the base of the Mt.Cook glacier. The water was freezing! This was a really nice hike, quite easy, but seemed to take forever and the wind was relentless! This country is extremely WINDY!! Very strong winds that almost blow you over! On the trail was a guy using crutches....not sure how he managed but he was determined.

You can see the base of the glacier covered in dirt just at the waters edge

walking back