Cookie Monster visits Mount Cookie:
After a few days in the Catlins National Park we had had enough of beach forests and petrified wood; we were craving the mountains again. So we packed up our belongings, made some salad sandwiches and headed to Mount Cook (Aoraki - Cloud Piercer) - only the tallest mountain in the whole of the southern hemisphere of planet Earth. As we drove along the glacial valley floor we were trying to identify the exact whereabouts of said Cookie, as even the foothills were gigantic enough to be covered in cloud. We left our van and went for an excursion to glacial lakes and had our first ever sighting of icebergs. Which was nice. However, we still had no positive sighting of the elusive Mount Cook. We spent a very chilly night parked up on the glacial valley floor (we had been told to be prepared for snow) huddled together like penguins. The following morning we set off on a trek to find Cookie (and not a single flake of snow). We walked through avalanche zones (we were somewhat perturbed by hearing a particularly large rumble not so far away) and across swing bridges, we thought we had spotted her and spent a while taking pretty pictures. It was only on our return that we realised the mountain we had been photographing (which features in many of our snaps) was a fraud. Mount Cookie loomed over us in all her glory. She was of epic proportions and sparkled beautifully in the sunlight. The mountains which we had mistaken for Cookie were simply dwarfed by her. At the end of the track was a monument dedicated to the many people who had died climbing Mount Cook. What struck us the most was just how young the majority of the lives were. A vivid reminder of how powerful nature can be.