Mt Cook

This means something... (Mt Cook, or Aroaki in maori)... btw, if you look at the clouds above Mt Cook. Dont know how well it shows in the pic, but up close they look like spaceships, and this, we've learned, means there will be a storm coming soon

Seems like all of the journeys we've made has had something to do with a big mountain (or at least a big chunk of rock). In Australia it was Ayers Rock, in China/Tibet it was Mt Everest, and in Alaska it was Mt McKinley. This time around, its the highest peak of the Austral-asia, Mt Cook (3755 meters). Perhaps next time its Denmark and Himmelsbjerget.

Located in a valley, not far from the base of the mountain is Mt Cook Village, where we are staying. The feel of our hostel is like that of an alp hut, and it fits perfectly with the scenery that surrounds it.

Mt Cook from Visitor Centre

View of the ice falls from our bedroom, YHA Mt Cook

Left Christchurch early on the 5th of January in our rental car (a golden Nissan Bluebird), and drove Highway 1 until we reached the turn off for the scenic Highway 79 which would take us through Geraldine and Farlie, towards the turquiose lakes of Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki, before finally reaching Mt Cook Village.

Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo

Lake Pukaki and Mt Cook

Throwing macka at Lake Tekapo

We had planned to be out of Christchurch early, so we'd get to Mt Cook early afternoon, but as it turned out, we got a flat tire (actually, it was the thing where you pump in air that leaked, and we believe it was broken when we got the car) between Geraldine and Fairlie, and had to find a garage that could fix it for us. It actually wasn't a problem at all. Cost us only 30 Nzd, and we got help from a red headed, two meter giant, with a cigarette casually hanging from his lips, who looked exactly like Josh Homme from Queens of the stoneage. So, could've been worse.

Got to the village not too late, checked out the Hermitage Hotel, the visitor centre with an exhibition about various climbers, and a centre in honour of the Kiwi mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first man to ever climb Mt Everest. We did not have any food with us, and there's really no food to be bought here, so instead of once again pigging out on cans of Big Eat Spaghetti Bolognese, we went to a restaurant with views of Mt Cook, and had a Burger, on a bagel... a bit odd, but tasty, and at lest there was no beetroot (rödbeta) on it... they seem to love that here just as much as the Aussies.

The storm is coming

On day two, today, in Mt Cook Village we woke up to the sound of a raging storm. Even though the wind was strong, the weather early in the morning was not that bad, and you could get a semi clear view of the summit, so we decided to head out on the 3 hour Hooker Valley hike. However, the weather got progressively worse during the hike.

Shelter, halfway on the hike

Bridge over troubled water

At the end of the hike... theres a glacier in the background, and there is a mountain there somewhere.

The wind was so strong at times that we almost were blown off the path on several occassions. Once we reached the end of the hike, the mountain was beginning to fade from view due to low clouds and rainfall, and when we headed back, the mountain completely dissapeared from view. When we got back to the village, we could not even see the ice falls that we could see from our bedroom window earlier that morning.

Hooker River

We had originally planned on doing another, shorter, hike today, but since the weather is as bad as it is, we've decided against it and will instead spend the afternoon relaxing at the hostel, watching a movie or whatever there is to do to pass time. If the weather tomorrow morning is good, we'll do the hike then instead, and if not, we might drive to Wanaka and check out the Rob Roy glacier before heading to Queenstown.

PS: We need to apologize for our crude remarks about Gothenburg and Malmoe being suburbs to Stokholm. Seems like these comments got the "hate mail machine" going, and we sure did recieve lots of them. Oddly enough, half of the hate mails were from people named Glenn... what are the chances of that?

So, no, Gothenburg and Malmoe are not suburbs to Stockholm at all. Gothenburg is a city all on its own, located at the backside of Sweden, and Malmoe does not even belong to Sweden, but instead belongs to Denmark... just needed to settle that once and for all.