“It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves”

February 21 and 22

On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary was the first person to summit Mt Everest with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Hillary was from NZ and used Mt Cook/Aoraki as his training grounds.

Apart from the 5:15 a.m. alarm this morning, I think today was my favorite day of the trip so far.

We drove about an hour and a quarter to Mt Cook/Aoraki (“cloud piercer” in Māori) to arrive in time for our 8:00 tour with Glacier Explorers, the only glacial boat tour in NZ.

We boarded a bus to the Tasman Valley and walked about 20 minutes to the jetty where our boat was waiting.

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We spent an hour on Tasman Glacial Lake, NZ’s largest glacier, learning about the glacier and dodging icebergs on our little yellow speed boat, specially crafted in NZ for this unique experience.

There are over 3,000 glaciers in NZ and Tasman Lake was formed only 30 or so years ago, meaning these boat tours are pretty recent. The surface temperature of the water was a chilly 37- 41 degrees, and its murky, milky color, known as glacial milk, is due to silt or rock flour left behind as a result of erosion.

Icebergs occasionally break away from the terminal face of the glacier and land in the lake, a process called calving.

Ninety percent of what lands remains underwater, with only 10 percent visible above the surface of the water.

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We learned about how the glacier is melting at an alarming rate, which made our trip even more special, since this glacier probably won’t exist in 100 years or so. I got to hold a piece of the glacier, which was pretty cool. The guide even offered to mail it back to Denver for me or told me I could take it with me as a souvenir. We all laughed and I threw it back in the water.

We were fortunate to have another blue sky day so that we were able to see Mt Cook unobstructed. This mountain, NZ’s tallest, is often shrouded in clouds so we lucked out with gorgeous weather and pristine views.

After our boat tour, we did a quick Superman change into our hiking clothes for the Hooker Valley Track, a 6 mile relatively flat out and back hike to Hooker Lake. However, we clocked in at 8.5 miles by hiking from the hotel parking lot instead of driving to the trailhead as Mitch thought we could use the extra prep for our upcoming 60 mile trek.

This hike is the most popular hike in the Mt Cook National Park and it was super busy. The views of Mueller Glacier, Mt Cook and tons of icebergs floating in Hooker Lake were incredible.

We crossed three swing bridges, passed 20 people wearing Yankees hats (yes we counted) and took 28,000 steps.

It was a long and an amazing day to remember!

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February 22

We decided to combine the past two days into one post since we didn’t do too much today in Tekapo besides hang around and go to the beach. We needed a lazy day after yesterday’s adventures. We packed up since we leave tomorrow morning for the southeast coast of the South Island, an area called the Otago Peninsula.

One exciting thing that happened this morning was that 900 sheep were herded right outside our door. Yes, 900! Mitch thought he heard the sound of birds on the roof, but then thought instead we had some new neighbors checking in next door. Instead, it was the sound of farmers trying to herd their stray sheep that escaped into our back patio and get them back to the flock. The sound was deafening as you can imagine as we looked at the escapade from the safety of our balcony. A farmer later told us that today was the day for the annual sheep sale in Lake Tekapo and we hit the jackpot right in our very front yard as the sheep were off to market.

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Mitch stayed up late to watch the International Space Station whiz by exactly on schedule at 10:10 p.m. We’ve seen it twice now. The stars have been incredible sitting on the front porch of our apartment. Mitch counted about 5 other satellites that he spotted with our binoculars while I was happily asleep.

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