Mount Cook – Aoraki [Cloud piercer]

Milford Sound – Mitres Peak

New Zealand – Lake Tekapo

Maldives – Meeru resort Sunset

The amazing view from Mary’s parents house in Derbyshire.

Taken on Newcastle Quayside in the morning just as the sun was beginning to rise.

Franz Joseph Glacier – New Zealand

We woke up at 6.30am, unintentionally but happy to be able to get the most out of the day. I could hear some birds calling from outside. Around the hotel are notices warning about feeding the Kea, local parrots, they can cause damage to the hotel and pinch personal belongings. We had a painting of 2 Kea picking at an old black leather boot.
Out on the balcony looking to see where the bird call came from, a Kea was sat on the railing of the balcony next door. As parrots go these are not very pretty, they look more like a cross between a parrot and a hawk.
We also saw a pair fly in front of us outside the hotel later in the day.
At breakfast buffet we were a little more restrained than on the previous day but still had enough to see us past lunch time. We were in the lobby for 9.40am ready to be picked up for our glacier adventure.

Glacier Adventure
a 25 seated bus picked us up and drove 20mins to the Tasman Lake car park. A 30 min walk through a moon like rocky landscape. The Tasman valley was incredible. High mountain sides with a flat rock strewn valley floor, 4km across, although because of the scale of the mountains it only looked about 1km, truly amazing! It wasn’t until we had to walk to the lake we could comprehend it. No matter how far we walked the other side didn’t get any closer, and still looked about 1km away.

We came to the top of a hill and looked down to lake Tasman, a small hut and boat jetty. As we neared the hut out guide approached us with our red life jackets. We boarded the boat and were given the safety talk. As a demonstration of how it wasn’t a good idea to fall off the boat we were asked to put our hands in the water for 10 seconds. It was freezing cold, as you’ed expect from glacier melt water. Typical glaciers are 1/3 above the water 2/3 below the water line. Here they are 1/10 above and 9/10 below. Some of these glaciers must have been huge.
Apart from the 3 boats on the lake and a helicopter that looked no bigger than an insect on the other side of the valley, we were the only signs of life.
The filled the valley floor. It’s milky appearance caused by the glacier flour, powdered rock caused by the glacier crushing rock as it moves downhill. This mixture also means that sunlight doesn’t penetrate the surface and therefore there is no life.

Our guide moved the boat along side the ice berg so we could reach out and touch it for ourselves. Where the sun had shone on the iceberg the ice had formed into separate ice crystals, and now were all sat next to each other in a massive iceberg jigsaw. At places you could pull ice crystals away, and there were plenty floating in the water. Holding those ice crystals up to the sun caused a rainbow of light which danced and sparkled. Our guide would gently nudge the boat against the smallest iceberg to cause it to roll over exposing the blue ice untouched by the sun. As bits melt and fall away from the ice bergs they rock and roll in the water to balance and find the 10% that it needs to sit above the water. This process can take hours before the ice bergs settle and balance again. We couldn’t get very close to the glacier face as the under water glacier shelf, created by ice falling off the exposed face above the water, is unstable and could break off. this happened once in January and created a 3 meter wave that swept across the lake and covered the boat jetty, 6km at the other end.

The lake, ice berg, glacier, mountain range and snow capped peaks are possible one of the most stunning places on the planet. A truly unique experience, quite spectacular.

After disembarking the boat and walking the 30mins back to the park we were rewarded with 10mins relaxing at the clear water stream where we dipped our feet in the cold water.

Back at the Hermitage for 1pm. Our cases were packed in the car and we planned to leave for 3pm. 2 hours of relaxing on the veranda of the cafe enjoying the panoramic views of the mountains. We downloaded all of our photos on to the computer, had some drinks & shared a cup of chips.
By 3am we were in the car and waving goodbye to mount cook. One last photo from Peter’s view point over looking Lake Pokaka close to route 6.

I was feeling tired so at Twizel we stopped for ice cream and an energy drink. 5 mins later we were back in the car and eating up tarmac. The drive was really pleasant past lots of small habitations, and windy roads through the hills. for a major road to Queenstown we were surprised to only see a handful of cars all journey.

When we came to Artogia our of the mountain the road was littered with vineyards. One of them was Wooing Tree, Mary sampled a glass of the Rose at our evening meal in Arrow Town. We stopped in Cromwell for drinks. Then quickly carried on toward Queenstown. On a whim I fancied driving through Arrow town, and I’m glad that we did. An old gold rush town this place is a treasure trove of shops and restaurants.
The main street could be straight out of a spaghetti western.

We looked at several restaurant menus but the most impressive one was at.
Mary had the cod with mussels and I had a trio of curries. As a free compliment we were given a bloody mary, like the drink, a whole tomato pickled with tabasco sauce. etc. It was unusual but brilliant. the food was equally fabulous and the service perfect.
Mary didn’t feel well towards the end of our meal so we set off quickly to QT. The gold ridge hotel was easy to find, we checked in and went to bed.

What a fun filled, stunning beautiful scenic view filled, action packed day. We loaded up the car and loaded up at the breakfast table. at $31 each we made sure we got our moneys worth!

We left Christchurch at 9.30pm and headed out of town on highway 1. The maximum speed limit is 100kph, so a bit more relaxed to what I’m used to in the UK. Even though the road was the main route to our destination it was only a single carriage with occasional short stretches of 2 lanes to permit over taking slow vehicles. We stopped for drinks in Ashburton at a local coffee shop off the main highway. Back on route we turned left on to the route 79 heading toward Geraldine. At last our Tourist Radio, which had up until now just been playing popular songs came to life and began to tell us a bit of local history about this quiet backwater town. By the time we were heading out of Geraldine we heard about several wonderful must see sights, maybe next time!
Up until now the landscape had been fairly flat farmland but now we were greeted with some large rolling green hills, and occasionally we caught glimpses of craggy mountain tops poking through the clouds.
We came to the last big town, Fairlie, before our final destination, Mount Cook.
As mount Cook is quite isolated all the guide books suggest to stock up on food to avoid paying top dollar when you get there. We bought fruit, crisps and bottled water. we also stopped for lunch at a local cafe. Very friendly staff and tasty food.
They even let us use their phone to ring our hotel in Queenstown. free internet was also a winner and convinced us to part with some more cash for an ice cold diet coke, so we could stay a little longer. Over lunch Mary prayed for the clouds to clear up and as we headed out of town they did. We were greeted by a spectacular vista of rolling hills and mountains. I was itching to stop the car and take some photos but we were already behind schedule so Mary convinced me to drive on.
In the cafe the lady who served us siad we had to stop at Lake ____ and for good reason. the lake was a bright blue and we surrounded by mountains. The next lake, Lake Pokaki we stopped at was even more spectacular and now we could see some snow topped peaks. Could this be Mount Cook?

The Mauri name for Mount Cook means ‘cloud piercer’ the peak is hidden by clouds 1 day out of 3.

We turned right off the main road, a sign told us that Mount Cook was 55km. The road hugged the side of the lake with the mountains on the other side. Immediately ahead of us we could see Mount Cook, it dominated the sky line and imposed itself on the rest of the landscape. If this was what it looked like from 55km away what was it like up close. Again we had to stop ourselves from stopping every 5 mins to take photos of more beautiful scenery.
Thankfully the roads in New Zealand are quiet otherwise I’m convinced they’d be far more accidents as tourists are busy gawking at scenery instead of watching the road.

45mins later, a couple of photo stops and several one lane bridges later we arrived at the Hermitage. We quickly checked in and dropped our bags in the room and were down stairs at the events booking desk getting the low down on what to do. It was 6pm so we could do a quick walk before bed, either 1 1/2 hours or 3 hours round trip. We’d picked up a brochure in CHristchurch about the glacier boat trip and we were sold. We booked on the boat for 10am the next morning so now all we needed to decide was how adventurous we were feeling. A 3 hour walk and back before it got dark, ‘No Problem!’. A quick 5 min drive up to the car park and map to give us an idea of where to go.

The 3 hour walk took us up to Hooker Lake & glacier and an up close and personal view of Mount Cook – Still cloud covered peak. (There was only us there, probably because no one else was as stupid to go this late at night without flash lights.) The lake was a greyish milky colour and freezing cold with a bit of ice berg floating in it. The walk took a little longer than we had hoped and by the time we reached the lake only Mount Cook was left in the sunlight.
Ah, the race was on to get back to the car before dark, and oddly enough before we left 2 German girls visited the lake after us. Could we beat them back?
As we were about half way we heard a thunder clap & fearing an approaching storm we quickened our pace. We later found out it was probably ice falling from the glacier.
We made it, but only just. By the time we were back at the hermitage it was pitch black. We ventured out for an evening drink but the walk had been too much and exhausted we dragged ourselves to bed.

We started this morning at Brisbane airport sleeping on quite comfy foam chairs. To our delight we were treated to a spectacular sunrise and had front row seats for one of god’s dramatic light displays. What a wonderful introduction to our holiday.

We left home at 09.30 on Monday. A 6 hour journey to Dubai a mad rush through the x-ray machine and on to the next terminal to catch our connection to Brisbane via Singapore, which were 2 more 6 hour flights. The aeroplanes were ok, the food was good, we met some nice people and I managed to watch 7 films! We enjoyed free drinks so we arrived in Brisbane at 1am and our flight was at 8:30am. As we were having breakfast we realised the time was not 7.30am as we had thought but 6.30am. Better than 8.30am I suppose.

Thankfully Brisbane was a really nice airport. Very clean and a relaxed atmosphere.

So, our next flight was to Auckland only 2.5 hours this time. Until now we’ve not had to collect our luggage, so this stop took a little longer. At last we were in New Zealand, but our travels were not over yet. A one hour flight to Christchurch on the South Island, and a car journey to our hotel. The hire car is nice, a Toyota Corrolla. We cruised our way to down town Christchurch. We checked in to the hotel. My first experience of valet parking. At 8.30pm we go far a wonder around town. It’s quite quiet. A really pretty city, very tranquil but enough life to make it interesting. A beautiful cathedral. We’re in bed by 9.40pm, and looking toward to a nights sleep after 40 hours or so traveling.