Kia Ora, Aotearoa: November 29

We packed up the trusty Toyota and headed for Cynthia's next must-do destination; Mt. Cook.
We had not gotten there on either of our last trips. Living in Washington we are no strangers to mountains, but we were unprepared for what we would see.

On the way we decided to pick up a couple Subway sandwiches in Geraldine to take to Tekapo.

We saw lots of interesting things for sale along the road: pony poo, $3.00 per bag, pine cones, $3.50 per bag, and free range eggs. I can't seem to find out what range eggs are and why everyone is always trying to give them away.

Lake Tekapo. The coloration comes from glacial silt transported down the valley from the Godley River

Mt. Cook at the head of Lake Pukaki, another glacial lake fed by the Tasman River

The road to Mt. Cook takes off from the main highway and terminates at the Mt. Cook village some 60 kilometers later. It runs up the west side of Lake Pukaki which is situated in a glacial valley with towering mountains on both sides. There's one way in and one way out. We thought we saw a lot of campervans on the coast. The CV traffic on this road was unbelievable. I'm sure glad it isn't summer.

Typical corner of a car park

The mountains here in New Zealand don't bother with the foreplay of foothills; they just leap out of the plains and into the sky

When we got to the village we started looking for a place to stay amid the limited accommodations available. After passing a litany of "No Vacancy" signs we were pretty much forced to stop at the bully of the village; The Hermitage Hotel.

Inquiring at Reception we were told that the cheapest room they had was $250, and no view. We then considered the the DOC campground about 3 kilometers away and took a drive. Once there we found that there really wasn't any place left to pitch a tent that didn't have a mini-Mt. Cook in the middle of it. The clincher was the screaming baby. But not all babies there were so ill-behaved:

Nap time

Warm gravel feels good on the tummy

Also, the DOC is under some delusion that I'm going to, um, uh hem...crap in a pipe!

So back to the village. Continuing around the loop road from where we left off we came to the Chamois Backpackers. Thus far we had escaped having to stay at a backpackers, but we were out of options for anything within a 20 minute drive. We opted for a motel room with a wretched view of Mt. Sefton...for $125.

We were somewhat confused by the placarding in the shower:

Evening settles in...

The following morning the plan was to fish the Glentanner spring creek. I wanted to get a reasonably early start (8ish) so we went out looking for breakfast. We wandered the village. There were a couple places that served "breakfast" but didn't open until 10 am. So we were forced to walk up to the Hermitage. Since we considered $75 for breakfast just a tad outrageous we decided on our sticks and seeds, and coffee in the communal kitchen at the backpackers.

When I walked into the kitchen I had to quickly step back out again and look for the sign. Sort of when you wander into the restroom and don't see any urinals. I had to make sure that I hadn't accidentally wandered into a barn. The place was filthy. Caked food all over the tables. Big clumps of noodles (favorite fare of backpackers on the cheap) in the sink, and God knows what else. We had to scrub off a place to eat, and even then I was afraid to let the cutlery touch the table. After breakfast we headed out. It was a spectacular day; sunny and uncharacteristically calm.

The next day the plan was to pack the rig, do some hiking and head outbound for Twizel. It was a good thing that I fished the day before because this day the wind was just howling! The first order of business was fueling up the truck for the drive to Twizel. Next nearest fuel was at Twizel about 80 kilometers away, and I was low.

They have self-serve fuel pumps there so we pulled in. Now here's an interesting bit of trivia. It seems that almost everywhere else in the world credit cards have embedded RF chips, and require PIN numbers for transactions. I guess as Americans we are just not yet ready for Big Brother to know our panty size. This is not a problem for face-to-face transactions where you can sign, but here there is no one. We tried every card we had including debit cards that had PINs to no avail. I went to the DOC center and told them of my problem and fervent hope that this was not the first time this had happened. They told me that the fuel was owned by dum, dum, dum (imagine spooky music here) The Hermitage. Shocker. Anyway, I was able to have them take a draw from my credit card and send a porter down to use his card so I could fill up.

Glacial moraine at Kea Point

Cynthia wanted to hike up to the Tasman Glacier viewpoint. This required driving about 10 kilometers from the village on a dusty gravel road to the car park. Fortunately the wind was blowing so hard at right angles to our direction of travel that the dust cloud from the lumbering behemoths ahead of us blew straight out sideways. The road in was long with a gentle curve so that you could see the 10 campervans ahead of you in the distance. Their dust plumes reminded me of something you would see in a Patton movie as he chases Field Marshall Rommel.

When we got to the ridgeline viewpoint the wind was blowing so hard that you had to be REALLY careful not to get blown off the mountain. Seriously. The wind must have been at least 60 mph and you had to hang on to rocks when you walked.