We woke and there was an anxious moment as the blinds were pulled back. Wow! It was a perfect morning. Such a contrast from when we went to bed. Not a cloud in the sky, any wind and crystal clear. We could see the pink light hitting the snow-capped mountains so quick sticks. A very quick shower and we decided to drive back to the Lake Pukaki visitors centre for breakfast.
Now we could see the monster of Mt Cook at the other end of the lake some 50km away as clear as a bell. What a sight. So we got the camp chairs out, made ourselves a Swiss coffee, chucked some muesli in a bowl and ate at what could be argued as the most beautiful restaurant going around. Took some photos and was hard to leave, but we had bigger fish to fry.
Up to Mt Cook village we went, stopping many times, as the closer we got the more majestic and overpowering the scenery became. Many, many a photo was taken. We got to the visitors centre, and a wonderful one at that. Lots of info and educational stuff about mountaineering / climbing and the history off. There was a great big window framing the great mountain outside to top it all off. We enquired about the boat trip on the glacial lake. One was just about to leave and the next one was from 2pm till 5 at $130 a head. We will see. A quick bit of souvenir shopping and a review of the forecast. Nothing but sunshine saw us out the door, and heading for the Tasman glacier.
We got to the car park and saw that the Ball Hut road (the actual road we were not allowed to go on) was chained off anyway and I probably would have though twice taking the Suby on it. We had out boots on today and it was time to use them. We headed up to the Lake view, but took the Blue lakes detour at Zuzi’s request. A nice walk around 4 or so blue lakes, all differing shades of blue/green. Then we headed up to the lake view. Got up there and was confronted with a totally unexpected sight.
One of a huge milky grey lake with many an iceberg floating in it. Now they did not look too big, that was until we saw one of the boats peak out from behind an iceberg to give us a size reference. Dwarfed by the icebergs is an understatement. I was very glad that all those people paid their $130 each so we could see how big the bergs really were. We were also lucky as the winds from the previous day had blown all the icebergs down to the section of the lake that we could easily access by foot, hence saving us $260. Thanks Huey : )
Back down from the lookout, around to the lake was not too eventful other than telling Zuz that the bushes were sharp. She went touch them softly and recoiled her hand with a mighty ouch and found two little holes with drops of blood coming from them. Told you, they are sharp. We finally got to the lakes edge (did not look that far from the lookout) and awesome just does not describe it. Sitting there listening to the drips of water coming off the icebergs and the occasional splash as a bit of ice or rock fell into the water. I could have sat there watching / listening all day long. There were some massive boulders being held up on the icebergs as well. Great to see Mother Nature at work in such a raw form. Many more pixels put to the sword before dragging ourselves away for lunch.
Back at the van, we took the chairs out and set them up next to this beautiful little stream underneath the mountainous peaks, keeping with the theme set from breakfast. This was really putting the pressure on for dinner. After cheese sandwiches / vita wheats it was back in the van to check out the campground. Awesome position, but not much to it so we thought we would check out the Sir Edmund Hillary centre and leave from there. It is supposed to be cloudy tomorrow and I would want the memory to keep this splendid image of what lay around us as is. In the end we expected a little more of the Hillary centre for all the hype it was given. Not saying it was bad. It was very informative and learnt heaps about the man himself, just not as big as we had been led to believe.
More shopping and then back down the highway, stopping many a time. Once even to clean the rear view mirrors. One last stop at the Lake Pukaki visitors centre for one last look before pointing the van towards the coast via Omarama to Oamaru. We followed the Tasman River down in its many forms as lakes and dams for the hydro electric scheme. They actually have 8 power plants on this river from Lake Tekapo to the Pacific. We also stopped at some Maori drawings along the way. As it was dark and I was getting very hungry we headed for the Top10 van park. Pricey and not too pretty in the dark, but better than anything we found. There were no rest areas for ages. Isn’t that always the way. We cooked spag bol and ate it in the van. Not quite as scenic as the other meals today, but the company was just as good. We also tried to work out a plan of attack for tomorrow.