Mount Cook

Mt Cook is the highest mountain in NZ. Still snow topped even in the middle of summer. Jasper has decided to come with us so we drove up to Mt Cook village in his car. The road goes alongside lake Pukaki which is glacial, which explains why it is so blue. It is truly beautiful. The weather has been a bit crazy. One minute it's sunny then it's raining then both. It changes so fast. The only consistency has been ridiculously strong winds. Luckily the tent has survived so far! The campsite is great you can see the glacier from the hut (there's a big room with tables and sinks that you can use for cooking etc when the weather is bad).

First day Jasper slept and Yannick and I hiked to Hooker Lake. One of the glacial lakes near the bottom of Mount Cook. The wind was so strong and the clouds meant that we couldn't see the peaks but it was still fun. We're back in glacier country now. In the evening we played cards with these 2 guys who were also staying on the campsite (German).

The first night the wind was so strong it was very hard to get a decent sleep. The wind continued through to the second day and got even worse. It was so so strong. It's because were only 50km from the west coast so I'm blaming the weather on that!

The second day we all did a hike along the Tasman Glacier, the longest glacier in New Zealand and it's very long, about 30km. It's far more impressive than the Franz Joseph or Fox Glaciers however it's a much harder hike with some really rocky terrain and thin tracks (there was no wind when we did it as it was in the next valley don't worry mum) but I'd reccomend the hike to anyone coming to NZ as there are so many less people (we saw 4) and the glacier is much more impressive. The mountains are still very much snow topped and you can hear the movement of ice from glaciers in the valley. Much if the glacier is covered in soil and small stones. So you can't appreciate the scale of the glacier until you realise this. At the bottom is a glacial lake (Lake Tasman) which is massive. Spot the boat in the picture so you get a reference point to how colossal everything is.

The hike ended at a little backcountry bunkhouse. Had Yannick mentioned this we would have brought our sleeping bags and stayed the night up here! Would have been an amazing spot to spend the night. It even has a luxourious toilet! We saw some keas aswell. Camping on the final night was just as windy with added rain. It will be good to get away from the mountains and hopefully back into the dry summer weather!