Mount Cook

We arrived yesterday at the Aoraki Mount Cook National Park World Heritage site.......in January a good friend David Brooks said to me that New Zealand was 'God's own land' ... I am beginning to think he was right.

I have just realised that we have not given you our first impressions of this country - I have never seen scenery like it, so varied and dramatic......so much space and the people are truly friendly. After just two days you get the feeling that New Zealander's are really proud of their country.


Yesterday was a rather dreary day but we saw our first glacier..........


This is the Tasman Glacier and is the largest and longest in the Southern Hemisphere - 27km long. The glacier has retreated a couple of kilometres in recent times and can reach over 600 metres in depth.

The front of the photo is old moraine, very fine rock, then the glacier lake with ice bergs and across the middle is the front of the actual glacier. The dirty top is more moraine rock.

The sight was amazing although rather eerie and cold - the landscape resembled the moon, or a scene from Doctor Who - below is a close up of one of the icebergs on the glacier terminal lake.



We headed for the Glentanner campsite and successfully parked our home.

It was an interesting night!!!! Just when everything was going so well it started to rain very hard and then at 04:00 hours the mobile rang......yes it was A Plan insurance ringing and Arthur had forgotten to put the fone on silent. By now we were wide awake as it was freezing cold - we put on the van heating which promptly knocked us out until gone 9:00 this morning.....by the time we were ready to leave we were the only ones left in the camp!!!!






But look at that view - not only had it rained overnight it had snowed - and we are now back in the same spot and that is the view I am looking at while blogging happily.

However I jump ahead - back to the day.......we went off to do a 4 hour walk and it was one of the most stunning, spectacular walks we have ever done......as Arthur said 'far more WOW's per mile than normal'....and here is why......






We were following the valley of the Hooker River up to the Hooker Glacier which is right at the foot of Mount Cook.




and this was the extent of the health and safety guidance:o)




There were two long suspension bridges over the river which just confirmed my decision that bungee jumping is out.....the river was full of the 'rock flour' but as it was moving so fast it looked cloudy rather than the turquoise blue.



and this was Mount Cook - absolutely magnificent 12,316' high and is New Zealand's highest mountain.




What was really fascinating that all along the valley was lush vegetation of all types including a foxglove......



Now today was any geography students glacial dream and we seem to know our fair share of geography students - myself, Richard, Caroline and now James and Chris.....I dont want to bore everyone else but just look at this glacier











and then we have erratics



more moraine



All in all an amazing walk.....



Sadly about 200 people have lost their lives on the mountains and the memorial to them is lovely - it is covered with individual plaques.






So we are now back in the van - and apparently I need to stop this and get some supper :o)

Tomorrow we travel from here to Timaru to see James - it is just south of Christchurch and the next few days promise to be a very different experience