To Mount Cook

February 8, 2014

Lucky 3 seems to be doing fine and we are motoring along going inland heading West towards Mount Cook.  We have a mission to get to Lake Pukaki and see the glacier of Mount Cook.  We hope to see icebergs floating in the lake; one of the brochures we read indicated we would, so we are quite curious about that.

In the meantime, we stopped at the Peel Forest and did another three hour tramp through the forest.  The drive to the Peel Forest took us by a huge deer farm.  It seems deer are just as curious as sheep and cattle and will stop what they’re doing to stare at you. 

The walk was a hard one with muddy, rocky and steep slopes.  We passed a waterfall (only 14 meters high), climbed up to some beautiful viewpoints, passed through an old forest with trees as wide as three meters and a 1000 years old; and ended the walk through a lush fern forest where as many as 68 varieties of ferns can be found.

That took us to lunchtime and then we packed up and landed at Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie Basin for the night.  Lake Tekapo is a beautiful aquamarine lake created by retreating glaciers some 17,000 years ago.  It is 30 km long and 120 meters deep and is kept icy cold from the Godley River’s glacial water.  Tekapo is the Maori word for resting place (Teka – sleeping mat; and Po – night) and was so named as it was a regular stop for travelers passing through to Mount Cook. 

Lake Tekapo is a dark sky reserve eliminating light pollution to present the best views of the stars and is home to the Mount John Observatory situated on Mount John.  The cost of the Observatory Tour was a bit daunting at $135.00 per person for a 2-hour tour starting at 11:45PM.  We chose rather to do a 3-hour daytime tramp up to the observatory and around the mountain returning by the lake path for free.  We both agree that we have seen plenty of beautiful starlit nights sans light pollution while at sea.

The cute part about the town is the statue of the Border Collie near the Church of the Good Shepherd.  The statue was erected as a tribute to the collie, which without their help the grazing of the Mackenzie basin would not have been possible.

Mount Cook is only 75 kilometers away and that’s where we are heading.

PS:  Thanks to Antje for a nugget of information on Kiwis – the Kiwi fruit actually originated in China.  And in fact, when it was first grown in New Zealand it was called the Chinese Gooseberry.