Adventures at Mt. Cook

In order to maximize the daylight hours we could enjoy, we decided, much to Bree's despise, to leave Christchurch at 6:45 am and make our way leisurely towards Queenstown. As our plans are flexible our drive was littered with many stops. Our first stopover was in the town of Tekapo. Here we stopped to see Lake Tekapo (shocking name choice, eh?). The weather was absolutely beautiful, and the reflections on the lake were amazing. As usual, pictures do not even begin to do justice, but here are some of our futile efforts...

A few pictures of Lake Tekapo, again, my futile attempts at National Geographic photography are a struggle and it really was much better in person

Along with its gorgeous lake, Tekapo is also famous for the Church of the Good Shepard. This is a small church that was built in the early 1900's and overlooks the lake. It is a picturesque setting and beautiful against the lake.

The Church of the Good Shepard

And of course, what town is complete without a sheep dog monument? While I am not really sure what the monument is for, in true tourist style we snapped photos anyway.

Sheep Dog monument, I really wanted to ride the sheep dog, but decided it may be offensive to the reason of the monument and decided against it. How mature am I?

Following our church and sheep dog experiences, we continued on our journey to the base of Mt. Cook. Mt. Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand, reaching 3764 m.

Mt Cook through the brush

Because of its height, 1/3 of the mountain is covered in snow all year, and its summit is not easily accessible to much anything other than helicopters, and perhaps rock hard mountain men. Because I am not a gear head and recently misplaced the keys to my personal helicopter, we had to settle for a trek up a neighboring mountain in the Southern Alps chain.

The trek we took led us initially along a boardwalk through a grassy field directly to the mountain range. We hiked up to a lookout point where we could see crater pools and other volcanic and glacier formations.

Though not Mt Cook, this is right next to it, I don't know its name, but cool reflection eh?

All of us at the lookout, how precious!

The lakes in this region of New Zealand are unique in their coloring as they contain rock flour, which is essentially the rock dust created when the glacier slowly moves over the mountains and then melts into the streams, which in turn feed the lakes, causing a very bright and strong blue coloration for the water.

After our short trek to the lookout we decided to embark on a more difficult track. This track was a route heading straight up the mountain (1.2 km elevation increase) ending at a hut designed for hikers to camp in and then head further into the mountain the next day.

Can you sense the oblivious enthusiasm?

Initially this trek was similar to those we had done before- challenging but not horribly difficult. It was at this point that we reached the base of the actual hike. As we were heading up the mountain, we met 2 hikers coming down. Being a bit hesitant on the difficulty of the hike ahead of us, we asked the hikers if we were going in the right way, as it seemed to us to be heading straight up the mountain through huge rocks and boulders. The hikers assured us we were correct, and that the summit was a solid 2 hour hike up and that we had better hoof it if we were going to make it down before dark.

Me climbing, Brooke attempting to thwart my efforts

Not to be outdone by old New Zealand hikers, we started the journey up the rocks and boulders. The sheer difficulty of the track we were treading was very funny to us and being the tourists that we are, we decided to take pictures to document how 'hard core' aka stupid we were.

Where's Waldo... amongst boulders.

These photos do not really do justice to what we were climbing. It was straight up and over huge rocks and boulders. While we were taking photos and debating whether we could hack this difficult of a climb (again the pride was setting in, as we did not want to be shown up by an old man with a walking stick) I noticed a trail indicator, pointing not in the direction we were heading (straight up the mountain), but barely off to the left, with a track, though still difficult, not directly in the avalanche and rock debris path.

Realizing we were on the wrong path (thankfully, as we would have probably attempted to climb up the mountain... no wonder tourists get hurt, we as a general rule are not very bright) we back tracked down and started up the correct trail. If you are thinking the actual trail was easy you would be gravely mistaken.

This is why stupid tourists get hurt eh?

This path, while not as littered with huge boulders, still went mostly straight up the mountain face, and had many medium sized rocks you had to step around and over. Brooke and I hiked this trail for approximately 45 minutes reaching nearly half way to the summit and base camp when we rightly decided to turn back as the sun had all but set and it soon would be dark and we would have trouble finding our way down the mountain with all the rocks and holes.

Look mom, we are being responsible... even though we wanted to hike to the snow line, ah well, another time.

Even with the wrong turn, and having to turn back early due to lack of sunlight, our treks were fabulous and memorable to say the least. If I ever return to New Zealand, I would love to complete this trek and stay in the huts along the circuit, but I will definitely come during summer, and avoid the frigid temperatures of the winter.