28/11–Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park

At over 3500 meters high, Mount Cook is New Zealand’s highest peak. It was used by the celebrated Kiwi, Sir Edmund Hillary, as a base for training while he prepared to become the first man to climb Everest. It is not a mountain to be trifled with and the remembrance books at the visitor centre document the many lives that the mountain claims each year.

As we had a couple of nights in nearby Lake Tekapo, we were able to take a day trip to the Mt Cook national park. Of course, we neither had the skills, the equipment or the bottle to get up the mountain itself, but there were plenty of walking trails at the base, where under Mt Cook’s baleful stare one could soak up the views without risking life and limb.

Having navigated around lakes Tekapo and Pukake, the remaining drive to Mt Cook is along a flat valley bordered by mountains. In previous weeks, we’d had glimpses of Mt Cook from the west coast on the Magic Bus, but it had always been from some distance away and partially obscured by the clouds and other closer peaks. Approaching the national park, Mt Cook was finally revealed to us in all of its glory, standing head and shoulders above its neighbours under a clear blue sky.

Despite my weasel words of assurance, Si Phong was quite rightly still not at ease with being out the wilds with me as her guide after the experience at Abel Tasman. We therefore opted for a nice, safe, four hour walk from the visitor centre over to the terminal end of the Hooker Glacier, at the foot of the mountain. Ever conscious of our 4pm pick up, any dallying or stopping for photographs was met with a deathly stare from my beloved, and a scathing reminder of the already costly compensation package that was owed to her upon our return to England.

So briskly we tramped along the valley floor, with nary a spare moment to take in the stunning views or rock, stream, flora and blue sky. When we reached our destination at the terminal end of the glacier, it was a quick 10 minutes to gulp down some sandwiches while small icebergs cracked and bobbed in the glacial lake in front of us, before a quick about turn and march back to the visitor centre.

I felt like a small dog on a leash, being dragged along by its impatient owner, when all I wanted to do was stop and have a good sniff around. But we got back with plenty of time to spare so it looks like it was a good call from the missus.