Today I made one last short walk in the Mount Cook area to the Tasman Glacier. An easy thirty minute stroll took me a viewpoint over the glacier’s lake where groups of tourists were being taken out on boat tours.
The glacier itself at the far end of the lake was a dirty gray colour; compared to my brilliant hikes of yesterday, today’s walk was rather disappointing, but at least the scenery around the lake was just as impressive as that which I had seen the day beforehand .
Soon it was time to head on to my next destination, Lake Tekapo. The road went back along the west bank of Lake Pukaki and then briefly along its south bank, where there was yet another great view of Mount Cook.
Lake Tekapo was like so many of the other places I stayed in New Zealand – a sleepy small town located on a picturesque lake – in Lake Tekapo’s case the lake is fed by glacier water and is s striking light blue colour. On the lake shore stood the much-photographed and tiny Church of the Good Shepherd, built to commemorate the country’s early European settlers in 1935 (which makes it almost an ancient monument by New Zealand’s standards!).
On the beach near the church, travellers had amused themselves building towers of rocks and pebbles to mark their passage, some of which were strikingly sophisticated.
After checking in to my bed and breakfast I set off for my main activity of the day – a 50-minute flight around Mount Cook and over the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.
The weather was perfect – sunny, no wind and a few clouds and soon I was in the air in a group of sixteen tourists admiring some amazing scenery.
Our route headed up over Lake Tekapo…
and then up a mostly dry river valley……
….lined with the foothills of the Mount Cook Range….
…to the glacial lakes I had seen on my previous walks in the area.
Then the plane flew over the huge snow fields on the top of the high mountains….
….that feed three huge glaciers – the Tasman glacier (the longest), which flows east, and then the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers which flow the other way, almost reaching New Zealand’s west coast (which was covered with cloud during my flight).
Then we flew past Mount Tasman, New Zealand’s second highest peak…….
….before the pilot gave us a close up view of Mount Cook. It was a great way to remember the mountain that had followed me for the few two days.
I am only a week in to my New Zealand holiday but I think I can already confidently say that the flight will be one of the highlights. My only complaint was that it was over all too quickly, and we were soon touching down at Lake Tekapo airport to reconnect with normal life.
The day had one last adventure in store. I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting out the hundreds of photos I had taken from the flight, before having dinner in a local restaurant. Later that night I headed out again to enjoy the night sky. Lake Tekapo is part of a “dark sky reserve” where light pollution is kept to a minimum – even the town’s street lighting is specially designed to project light only downwards. The organisation Dark Sky Project offers nighttime trips to observatories out of town to see a night sky almost untainted by artificial light; I wanted to book a tour but I was too late and they had all sold out. So instead, I headed to the town’s golf course, parked my car and looked up to see the magnificent spectacle of the Southern Hemisphere night sky. To my surprise, I even manged to take a few photos with my phone.
Stargazing was a great way to end a memorable and very varied day.
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