3 - Mt. Cook

It had snowed overnight and provided a beautiful dusting in all the mountains around us. Fortunately it hadn't stuck on the ground where we were, so driving was fine. Not surprisingly, the skies were gray with lots of clouds. We were headed toward Queenstown and had this one chance on the way to drive up to see Mt. Cook, the tallest and most famous peak in the South Island. We decided to go for it, though we weren't certain what the roads would be like. On the way, we rounded another glacial lake -- Lake Pukaki (LOTR Tour Site), and then up to Mt Cook Village.

The clouds were too low to see Mt. Cook but we came upon a couple of gems -- The Hermitage Hotel and the Sir Edmund Hillary Museum. We had no idea Mt. Cook was Hillary's favorite mountain and his training ground for Everest. The Museum was really well done and paid terrific tribute to this humble adventurer/philanthropist. The Hermitage has quite the history and is and always was a luxury retreat in the heart of the Southern Alps (read: filled with Japanese tourists). We spent long enough in the Museum that when we exited the building, Mt. Cook was visible! It's an impressive mountain at 12,120 ft.




The road up to the mountain provided our first introduction to bridges in NZ -- they are almost all narrow, one-lane bridges. We continued south and overnighted in Omarama, out of town on a lake. It was a remote place with almost no other visitors, and it had no-meter showers - yea! We spent some time at the lake watching the birds and ducks. Our favorite was the red-faced chickadee -- we don't know the real name, but they were beautifully colored.