Incredible sunsets

Saturday 31st October - Monday 2nd November, 2009

When we drove down the west coast of the south island back in March we spent much of our time trying to fatham whether we could see Mount Cook or not, but this time, driving up the centre of the island, there was no doubt which one was the highest peak. En route to Mt Cook we stopped at a lovely family owned vineyard just outside of Queenstown, where not only did we sample some fine wines, but we were also very interested to hear that their other, smaller, vineyard was up for sale along with their house, all for NZ$1.3m... we dreamt about what a good investment that could be!

After a long drive up through the centre of the south island, we were delighted with ourselves for finding a local camping spot called "The Pines" at the base of the drive up to Mt Cook village - not only was it free (a reoccurring theme that you will no doubt find throughout our travels!) but it also had magnificent views across Lake Pukaki and up to Mt Cook. Needless to say, the sunset was amazing, and turned the tip of Mt Cook pink (if only I'd have had some pink bubbly to match, oh well, a cold beer did me well instead!)

Before making our way up to Mt Cook village we indulged Frank's penchant for twitching. We popped to the local Kaki reserve to see some small, very cute black wading birds with bright red long legs (sorry for all those twitchers reading, I've probably not used very birdy terms here!) Even I was impressed with the work that these guys (most of them volunteers) do to save this lovely endemic* bird from extinction.

When we finally got to Mt Cook village I was (probably naively!) a little disappointed to find we wouldn't be climbing Mt Cook itself - it's actually very dangerous unless you're a professional climber, and even then it's infamous for taking many many lives due to the hard nature of the climb and the brutality of the ever changing weather up there. So, we decided to do the next best hike, an 8 hour walk to Mueller Hut, although we pretty much knew we wouldn't make it there due to the snowy conditions above 1,250 metres. We set out with hope in our hearts and easily got to Sealy Tarns (tarns are mountain lakes formed by glaciers, wow, I'm now astounding myself with my new found geography knowledge!) We ventured a little further up the mountain through a bit of snow, but when we got to the true snow line we ummed and arred about whether we were set up with the right gear to tramp through slushy snow which would go up to our waists, and ended up deciding it would be best to turn back around at this point.

So, with a bit of time to spare before heading off, we took a couple of short walks around the Tasman Glacier. The views couldn't have been more different to the Fox and Franz glaciers which we saw back in March. I imagined more images of clean, sparkling ice, but instead we were presented with what looked to me like a huge pile of rubble with a murky water lake at the end!

To make up for a disappointing view (and when I say disappointing in NZ standards, it's actually not that bad at all, you just get accustomed to some amazing things!) we took off and raced the sun to get to the top of St. John's Mount before sunset (a small peak close to Lake Tekapo known for it's observatory and therefore stunning views of the stars). This time we weren't disappointed; we had pretty much a 360 degree view of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen (Frank always corrects me to say it was more 270 degrees cos the observatory was in the way, but anyway... ) The highlight for me was seeing the full moon creep up from behind the mountains whilst we were watching the surrounding colours change - one one side we had a view of pinks, blues and purples, on the other yellows, reds and oranges. It was certainly a stunning, and very calming, way to end the day!

Cx

* Another very brief geography lesson (at least I think this fits under the geography umbrella, maybe it's more natural history - let me know it Mrs Balllard!) Some of you may well already know the difference between endemic and native (I didn't!) - endemic means that it is exclusively native to a place, and NZ is lucky enough to have a fair few endemic animals, like the Kaki, which live there and nowhere else in the world.