Our visit to Mount Cook was only brief, but for both of us it was one of the highlights of the trip so far.

We initially headed north from Wanaka on a three-hour drive to Twizel, where we were going to stay for a night. On the way, we passed the clay cliffs at Omarama which are a set of steep, high pinnacles separated by deep, narrow ravines.

Twizel (pronounced Twyzel rather than Twizzle) is nothing to write home about (except we are, of course). It was built in 1969 as a construction town for a hydro-electric development. Once the scheme was completed, the local people successfully fought to retain the town - though it has no really nice features apart from its proximity to Mount Cook and Lake Pukaki. The houses, for example, are nearly all low-quality, single-storey weatherboard.

After checking into our campsite, we headed east towards Lake Tekapo for the afternoon. As we drove along the shores of Lake Pukaki, however, we pulled over because there were stunning views of the water and Mount Cook in the distance. In this, we were quite lucky. A New Zealand girl parked next to us said she had passed by many times in her life; only rarely had the view of the mountain been so beautiful.

Lake Tekapo is a very small, touristy township on the edge of one of the region's many gorgeous blue lakes. We saw a sign for "Historic Church and Monument" so decided to have a look.

The church was about the size of the average living room and was built in 1935. Yes, that's right, 1935. Not 1835. I believe that qualifies my parents as historic because they were born about then!

And the historic monument was a bronze statue of a collie dog, erected in honour of their part in the region's sheep farming industry. Fair enough, I suppose, though it was put up in 1968. Oh b*****, that qualifies me to be an historic monument, I suppose!

What was funny though, was the sheer volume of day trippers coming to visit these apparent antiquities. As we were leaving, a coach branded 'Great Sights' pulled up and disgorged a couple of dozen of them, cameras waving, eager to record these monuments. I suppose I should have offered to pose for them.

After a very cold night in Twizel, we drove north towards New Zealand's highest peak, Mount Cook. Although it doesn't sound overly large at 3,754 metres (12,316 feet), it's a notoriously difficult mountain to climb. Just before Christmas, the papers were full of a rescue attempt for two Japanese climbers who had got into difficulties in a storm. Only one of them survived.

The road to Mt Cook took us alongside Lake Pukaki, which is a spectacular milky blue. The colour is caused by "rock flour" - finely ground particles of rock brought down by the glaciers at the head of the lake and held in suspension in the melt water. The road runs alongside the lake, giving spectacular views of the water and the surrounding mountains.

There isn't really a village at Mt Cook, just a couple of motels and the Hermitage Hotel, a large modern structure that doubles as an information and activity centre for the area. We weren't staying there, of course, as it would have been much too expensive. Instead, we decided to plumb the depths of camping in NZ and stay at our first Department of Conservation (sort of like the National Trust) site.

Doc sites, as they are known, come in various grades. At their lowest, they have extremely basic toilet facilities; at the high end, they are like commercial campsites and are only a little cheaper. We stayed at one in the middle, or standard, category which at least had proper flush toilets!

After selecting our pitch and coughing up the NZ$12 (about £4.90) to stay the night, we set off on a walk to the Hooker Glacier. The path was well marked and generally quite easy, though it crossed a couple of wobbly swing bridges and at various points we had to clamber over the rocks.

We eventually reached the point where the glacier changes from ice to a pool of cold water with small icebergs floating around in it. Hooker is just a small glacier and is covered in dirt from the surrounding land, but it was quite interesting nonetheless.

After getting back to our van (in record speed as Katy was testing her knee) we sat having a beer and watching the guy in the vehicle next to us doing something complicated to its left nearside wheel - or to be more precise, to the brake in it. After a while, he spoke to us and asked us if we had been in a particular campsite in Te Anau a few days ago. We said we had and he told us that his parents owned that site and he had been working there at the time and recognised us.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will remember us writing about someone at Te Anau trying to get us to book a bus trip to Milford Sound, rather than risk the (not very) terrifying road. That was this guy's dad and he confirmed that it was just an attempt to get us to fork out some cash. He said no one from the camp had ever had an accident, though he conceded that the road could get a bit dicey in the winter as it's prone to black ice.

One activity we fancied doing at Mt Cook was the star gazing. Although there were various options, the Hermitage hotel organised one with a proper astronomer and telescope for only $15.50, which we thought was excellent value.

The day was brilliantly blue and cloudless so we thought the night should be clear. We phoned the hotel to be told that it should be going ahead, though they wouldn't guarantee it because conditions change so rapidly in the area. (As the Japanese climbers would attest.)

It was due to start at 10.30pm and we set off to the hotel, taking a short cut across the wild terrain, at about 7.30pm as there was nothing to do at the site and there was a Sir Edmund Hillary exhibition which we thought we could mooch round to kill time. That, however, was too expensive and even though it was coincidentally the first anniversary of his death, we decided not to bother. Unfortunately, that left us with about two and a half hours to kill and not a lot to do unless we wanted to spend it in a pricey hotel bar, which we didn't. So we ended up sat in some chairs in front of a picture window looking at Mt Cook and at Japanese tourists taking photos of each other out on the hotel lawn.

They kept putting off a decision about the star gazing, much to our frustration. But eventually at 10.15 they called it off - the clouds had come and there were only a couple of stars visible. Disappointed, we set off to walk back to the campsite. There was no way we were going to take the short cut in the dark and going via the road would take ages, so we set off on an official path, which should take us right past the site.

We had a torch, but it must be admitted that it wasn't the brightest bulb around and there was no moon so it was pretty dark. Luckily the path was mostly clearly laid out and easy to walk, though there was one part where it crossed a dried up river bed and we had to work out where it was on the far side.

After about 35 minutes we were beginning to wonder where we were, however, as it was taking a lot longer than we had anticipated. We were sure we hadn't missed the branch off to the campsite, but seemed to be well past where it should be. Only a couple of minutes later, however, we found the path and arrived back to find Blanche waiting for us - nice and warm because we had put the hot water bottle in the bed before we set off!

The next day we decided to do another glacier walk before setting off for the west coast. This time the walk involved some steeper climbing and the terrain was a lot more bleak, with little vegetation, just rocks and stones.

I've just finished reading Lord of the Rings (it's the sort of thing one has to do given that the films were shot over here) and as I staggered slowly up the hills, I was reminded of Frodo as he gradually ascended Mount Doom at the climax of the story. But whereas poor Frodo was weighed down by having to bear the one ring of power, I had to carry the three rings of fat around my stomach. I'm sure my burden was greater!

Richard