Last night we parked at a viewpoint car park, which was listed as an overnight stop, and had a lovely quiet night. The forecast for today was not good so we laid in but awoke to the arrival of the day’s first tour bus. We took our morning tea whilst watching the photographic antics of this latest batch of orientals, which even went as far as taking a picture through the van window of Yvonne drinking her morning cuppa.
With the car park now getting quite busy we fled to the nearby town of Twizel to buy some bits and pieces. On the way in we noticed a ‘dump station’, so took the opportunity to empty the waste water and refill the fresh water. Yvonne watched intently from inside as Glenn connected the various hoses and operated their associated valves. Everything went smoothly and she declared that she could manage all that - Glenn made a mental note for next time!
By now it was nearly midday so we set off for the Mt Cook park village in low cloud and intermittent drizzle. Once we’d found somewhere to park we had a small lunch and Glenn visited the visitor centre learning all about the history of climbing in the area and the formation of the glacial landscape.
With the forecast afternoon rain not yet materialised we decided to walk one of the local grockle (a term for tourists Glenn acquired from Cromwell Venture Scouts in his youth) trails to view some more lakes and glaciers. This trail crossed three long and bouncy ‘swing bridges’, suspension bridges to the rest of the world, over fast flowing streams and wound its way up the valley to the terminal moraine forming the dam for the lake. With the clouds really low and drizzle in the air the scenery took on a dramatic, mystic feel and the face of the glacier barely discernible in the distance. With the rain finally starting to fall - it could have held off for another 40 mins - we donned our coats and trudged our way back to the van passing a couple wearing all good gear but still trying to hang on to umbrellas in the wind.
Back at the van a Chinese mother and daughter hitched a lift with us to the village (they looked cold when we passed them) and, following a reappraisal of NZ’s freedom camping laws, we returned for the night to the nice little spot by a river we’d found yesterday. A wonderful hot meal of stuffed peppers with ratatouille and rice, all concocted on a two ring burner (nice one Yvonne), warmed us up and we prepared for an early night in readiness for tomorrow’s big hike.
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| One of the three suspensions bridges. |
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| And another |
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| The Hooker glacier through the mist. |
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