Mount Cook, Lake Wanaka, and Queenstown

Mt. Aspiring
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Easter Weekend April 6^th – 9^th, 2007

We set out on Friday morning about 8:30am on our way to Aorkai/ Mount Cook, the highest mountain  in New Zealand. Mt Cook is a peak in the Southern Alps range, which runs the length of the West Coast of the South Island. We arrived around lunch time and had a peanut butter and jam picnic before setting out for our hike. We took the Hooker Valley Track, which begins at the visitor centre and leads up the Hooker Valley towards Aoraki/Mount Cook. The track passes close to an Alpine Memorial, which is a great viewpoint, then crosses the Hooker River twice (on swingbridges) before eventually reaching the Hooker Glacier terminal lake. The walk took us about 3 ½ hours total. It was very busy that day, and the weather was perfect! If you go to Mt. Cook on a rainy, foggy day you may wonder why you cam at all because the mountain range will be covered with fog and you can’t see it at all. After our walk we sat up our tent (which we borrowed from friends in the lab). We picked a scenic location, however we didn’t realize until that night that is was on a slight slant! With our camp set up, we took a drive over to The Hermitage, a very nice hotel and shopping area, which was very nice. Then it was back to our tent for another PB&J dinner. The rain came in about 8:00pm and I got a terrible headache. It was so cold, but our sleeping bags kept us warm. We kept sliding down the slant throughout the night, and some moisture got into the tent, wetting the bottom of our sleeping bags. We woke up at 6:30am that morning and packed everything up rather quickly and headed to Wanaka. We stopped off in the town of Twizel for our much needed coffee!

We picked a scenic location, however we didn’t realize until that night that is was on a slight slant!

Mountains on the drive to Mt. Cook
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By the time we reached Wanaka the weather was perfect. Wanaka is a ski resort town with a beautiful Lake, and is a popular destination for New Zealand travelers. We stayed in a top ten holiday park, which had nice flat tent sites and warm clean showers. We sat up our tent, and then headed to tour the town. We had lunch in a little café and sat outside to look at the lake. After lunch and a quick walk around the shopping areas of the town, we rented a kayak and paddled around Lake Wanaka. The view from the kayak was awesome, but the water was so cold, and we got soaking wet! After out lake excursion, we had to go back to the camp grounds to take a shower and get on some dry clothes. By then it was time for dinner, but we made a stop at a beautiful vineyard called The Rippon Valley Winery. We had a tasting, and walked around the vineyard. They were hosting a wedding that day, which was beautiful (from what I could tell). The grapes were ripe on the vine; all the vines were covered in net to protect them from getting eaten by birds (I guess). We had dinner at the Speights Brewery restaurant, then walked around town before going back to the tent. The sky was so clear, and we enjoyed seeing some of the southern hemisphere’s constellations like Orion’s Belt and The Southern Cross. The next morning was Easter Sunday, and we drove into town to a little bakery for coffee and breakfast. It was one of the only restaurants in town that wasn’t charging a 20% fee for being open on a holiday (most businesses must close on Easter Sunday, and if restaurants are open, they charge 20% extra so they can pay their employees holiday pay). After breakfast, we took a drive (though cow, sheep, and deer paddocks), to a viewing point of Mt. Aspiring. It was such a beautiful drive, because the early morning fog was just lifting and the sun was shining bright. Afterwards we packed up the tent and headed to the town of Clyde for the Food and Wine Festival. The festival was so much fun! There was a jazz band playing on stage and plenty of wine, ciders, food and cheese to sample! We had lunch there (homemade steak a cheese pies) and tasted several wineries samples. I bought a pair of New Zealand Paua shell earrings from a local craft shop (Paua Shell comes from a muscle which is endemic to New Zealand coastal waters). After the festival, we headed to Queenstown, and finally to a hotel!

First View of Mt.Cook from the road
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Queenstown reminded us of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, only less of a tourist trap. The town is full of fun shops, restaurants, and cafes. Queenstown is a resort town that sits adjacent to The Remarkables mountain range (which was featured in The Lord of The Rings several times). The first thing we did was take the Skyline Gondola to a stunning view of the town and mountains. Once at the top, the gondola drops you off and you jump back onto another chairlift to ride up to the luge ride! These are little carts with handlebars that you drive down the mountain side. There is a scenic slow route, and a fast track…we rode 5 times and it was awesome! The next day we went to Deer Park, a reserve and the location of several Lord of The Rings filming locations. This was my favorite part of the trip, because I got to hand feed llamas, alpaca, donkeys, sheep, deer and goats…we also saw yaks, and bison. We also enjoyed seeing The Lord of the Rings filming locations (they were mostly from The Two Towers when the people of Rohan were fleeing to Helms Deep, and when Aragon fell off the cliff during the battle with the Warg riders). The trip was so much fun, it was a lovely Easter Holiday!