The Mt. Cook area, like most alpine zones in the world, is visually stunning. It's snow-capped mountains jut abruptly into the air, high above the surrounding hills.
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| Mt. Cook National Park |
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| Approaching Mt. Cook National Park - Stunning Views |
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| My kinda driving! |
The last time we visited the area, in 2005, it was October - spring was in the air, but it was alpine-cold. This time was warmer - but not much! The weather has been unseasonably cold and dreary for us in the south island, putting a damper on adventures - no doubt 'too bad' - but it did open up room in our schedule for some great indoor family time!
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| Fun! |
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| Christmas Pavlova - marshmallow-y goodness! |
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| A little wrestling - kiwi style - note that Parker has no connection with the ground in this shot :) |
We've made more soups, played more guitar, sung more and gotten deeper into school than anywhere else we've been - all according to plan :)
Lake Tekapo (Lake and Town)
Enough yammering - let's talk travel!
We drove in from the town of Fairlie where we crashed for 2 nights.
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| Christmas in Fairlie |
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| Chinese 'Takeaways' in Fairlie - the backdrop is the public park in the town centre - great place for young ones to blow off some road-trip energy |
The drive down HWY 8 is eye-catching and fun. Straight-aways peppered with slow-down-to-35km/h turns through alpine passes and farm fields.
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| Beautiful country drive |
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| Stop and smell the Lupins - literally! |
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| Some alpine action |
Lake Tekapo (the lake) is famous for its silty-turquoise, glacially-fed, frigid waters. On a sunny day, it's really mesmerizing - it's not half bad on a cloudy day either! The lake's backdrop is a panorama of snow-capped Mts. Hutton and Sibbald.
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| It's light turquoise - even the satellite imagery agrees! Kudos for the cloud-free shot Google! |
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| No bad angles |
We visited the area on 2 separate days, hence the different colours.
The lake has a scenic lookout in the heart of a small residential town - seemingly filled with weekend warriors, retirees and short-term renters (like us!). You can rent bikes, hire tour guides and do a small handful of 'extreme' things - if you dare :)
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| Yup, it's 'got it like that' |
My guess is that with all the million-dollar homes being built, it's leaning towards being a ski-in-winter and bike-in-summer town. There are 2 local ski areas - Roundhill and Fox Peak and plenty of knock-your-socks-off extremism in summer. If you're curious about real life here, checkout
this blog.
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| 2 ski areas |
There is no time of year when this lake is warm - even by Canuck standards! It hovers at a chilly 10-12deg C in summer. It is, despite this, a popular destination for water recreation of all sorts (even swimming!).
Visiting in spring, on an especially windy day, we spent very little time by the water - nobody else did either! It was pretty to look ogle, and that's about it - Parker stuck his finger in, threw a few stones from the shore and skittered back to the car to shelter from the wind - the other kids lasted even less time.
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| C-c-c-cold! |
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| Kudos to Parker for this parting shot - he's getting better. I forgot to set the camera back to point-n-shoot mode... oh well, focus and lighting aren't everything, right?! |
Nearby, further down the HWY towards Mt. Cook, you drive by Lake Pukaki - It too is stunning!
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| Stop as often as you can... |
All told, a lake drive-by is a very worthy experience. If the weather's ON, stay and play!
Mt. Cook and the Sealy Tarns Track (With Kids)
The cover photo of this blog entry is a view from the top of the Sealy track in the Mt. Cook area.
We drove in from Fairlie - 1.5hrs away - not exactly striking distance :( But, we were once again rewarded with views of Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki... which gave way to jaw-dropping views of the glacier-fed Hooker valley.
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| Hold the phone! |
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| Entering the Hooker valley - yup, this is 'for real' |
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| Undeniable beauty |
The tramping parking lot in Mt. Cook Village offers some pretty sweet views too...
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| Farm fields and glaciers - what a combo! |
The Sealy Tarns hike isn't very long, but it's a relentlessly steep climb. We chose to do it with the kids... because we though ours were up to the task (we'd had a few 'down days' with bad weather) and because it's the quickest way to great views of the valley and glaciers above it.
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| This hike took us 2hrs... the older 2 kids tackled it handily |
As it turned out, Parker wasn't entirely in the mood for a workout, so he bailed about 2/3rds of the way up - a pretty solid effort nonetheless :)
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| Parker's 'cool tree' |
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| Starting the hike |
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| Climbing... |
The kids were motivated by counting the steps - ~2,000 in total... no breaks, or flats in the climb, just pedal-to-the-metal, calf-busting vertical ascent.
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| Signs of wear-and-tear :) |
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| What a climb! |
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| Views! |
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| More views! |
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| At the top! |
You've already seen the view from the top (cover photo)... so here's a video from the top instead!
Thanks for reading - hope you're enjoying this leg of the trip as much as we did!
Great photos. Gorgeous vistas. Thanks for the visual tour.
ReplyDeleteNo worries. We are really enjoying writing these blog posts - they're a fabulous way to mull over our experiences and appreciate them even more.
DeleteSo did Parker hike the rest of the way down himself? I think you are near the Fox Glacier - no? That is where I went sky-diving...Any plans for a walk in the glacier? I am guessing you would need a guide for that.
ReplyDeleteNah - Cheryl decided she would 'take one for the team' and went down with him. Since he was in slow-mo, we ended up meeting them within 15min of them finishing anyway. And yes, it's near Fox glacier and south of Franz Joseph.... but no plans for the west coast of the south island this time... we're trying not to duplicate experiences too much - we did some glacier walking in Alberta just a little while back. You've touched on an important aspect of planning a trip this big - variety. We want to expose the kids to as much as possible without blowing our budget :)
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