the road to aoraki...

The journey to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park traverses right up the middle of the south island of New Zealand, off a road that goes both to the city of Christchurch and the small lake side town of Wanaka.  The road goes straight north, more or less, and ends in Mt. Cook village, which is at the base of the highest concentration of the biggest mountains in New Zealand.  Luke & I (see fotos) had come from Invercargill, where we had retreated during a period of massive and torrential rainfall in the majority of the natural places we hoped to hike in. So when as we got closer and closer to Mt. Cook and the clouds began to clear, we were very, well, happy campers!

We spent three days in Mt. Cook and had exceptional weather throughout.  The photographs above are a few selects from our journey to the park, the road and the clear blue lake beside that leads towards the park.  We slept the first night in the campground and woke up before eight to reach the Department of Conservation office of which we had been told we needed to get to before it opened in order to secure a night at the highly coveted 28 bunk Mueller Hut, which has just awesome views of both Mt Cook/Aoraki (cloud piercer - & the mountain on the right in the last photo).

As it had rained for almost four days straight, the rocky and grassy high alpine table where the mueller hut stands was covered in a tremendous amount of snow and when we eventually headed down the following day, sliding on our bums turned out to be mad fun!

Alas, a few views of the just awesome and i do mean awesome view from the Mueller Hut, sipping tea, making noodles, reading books, wearing sunglasses and bundling up at night. It was a good 24 hours of hiking and chilling in one part of a great national park. Deffinitely worth the troop...

love and health to all...