It’s an early start to our morning as we check out of The
Lilac Rose B and B. Maddie, the four legged host, bid us a fond farewell. We
get stalled a bit in traffic getting out of Christchurch but the slowdown gives
us opportunity to watch the kids as they head off to school. The popular mode
of transportation is by scooter, the push-with-your-foot kind. A few are using
bikes or skateboards but even fewer are just walking.
Mount Cook is our destination and it is a long drive for us
today but at least for a good part of the drive, the road is flat and straight.
This is probably the straightest and flattest driving we’ve done in all the
time we’ve been in New Zealand so far. Along the way we see several fields of yellow blooms. This is the plant that canola oil is derived from.

A little farther on there is a small strip of stores and a
couple of restaurants one of which looks inviting for lunch. We place our order
at the counter and then find a seat at the window that looks out over the lake.
Lake Tekapo is almost a Caribbean blue. The sun comes and goes but we can see
lots of clouds in the direction we are headed. Not a good sign.

We can see some snowcapped mountains ahead but have no idea
which one is Mount Cook. It begins to rain a bit—kind of like we are driving
through a misty cloud. I wonder if it isn’t the wind whipping up some water
from the lake and throwing it at us.
Where the lake ends and the braided river that feeds it
begins, we see the wind drawing up sand from the river bed and twirling it like
small tornadoes. It seems strange that it’s raining and yet the wind can whip
up dry sand.


The Hermitage Hotel has a nice fire burning in the lobby’s
fireplace. A welcome site since now there is a steady rain coming down.
Thankfully there is a parking spot right next to the door where we need to enter to
carry our suitcases in. Our room has a balcony with a view—well, the view for
the moment is a foggy wall of rain but we can always hope for it to move on.
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View from our room. Mt. Cook is there somewhere. |
Next to the lobby, there is a museum featuring Sir Edmund
Hillary and his conquest of Mount Cook (Aoraki), New Zealand’s tallest mountain (3754
meters), and several films about him and the mountain area are available to
watch but all for a price. We are tempted since it appears we won’t be doing
much hiking around here in this weather.

The sign says it’s a fifteen minute walk to the glacier. It
may be that long for someone used to mountain climbing. It takes us more
like thirty minutes to get to the top and the climb gets very rough just before
the end especially when my guide, Bob, gets off the trail and we are sort of
making our own way among rocks and boulders to get to where we could see there
was an interpretive sign indicating the end of the track. Out of breath and wondering how I was going to make it down
over that rocky area, I looked to my left to see a young couple practically sprinting
up the trail we were supposed to be on.

A little more rain starts to fall and the wind picks up so we
don’t linger. The way down is not too bad since we now see the trail more clearly. Certainly not as hard as the climb
up. We do it in the suggested fifteen minutes. When we take a last look at the
sign where we had begun, I tell Bob that we need to check the next time we see an arrow pointing
straight up to make sure it means straight ahead and not straight up,
literally.
The evening brings a lightening show and lots of rumbling
thunder as the noise echoes through the valleys between the mountains. What
will the morning bring we wonder? Will we get to see Mount Cook’s peak?
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