Day 18: Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park

Day 18

Summary: Hiked Tasman Valley track and Hooker Valley track in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park

Sunday, January 19th

One of the bedrooms in the Airbnb had a skylight, so we chose to sleep in there. We could see stars from the bed, which was really cool, we saw Orion and Sirius. I’ve always thought skylights were neat, and we didn’t even wake up super early from the light shining through it.

We cooked the fresh eggs and toasted the cheesy bread for breakfast and it tasted amazing.

As we drove to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, we listened to The Lord of the Rings soundtrack, which added another layer of enchantment to the experience.

The Maori named the mountain Aoraki after they arrived in New Zealand in the 14th century. The first Europeans believed to have seen the mountain are members of Abel Tasman’s crew in 1642. The English name, Mount Cook, was given in 1851 by Captain John Lort Stokes in honor of Captain James Cook. Captain Cook had surveyed and circumnavigated New Zealand in 1770, but actually never saw the mountain during his exploration.

We had no idea what type of weather to expect, so we packed a bunch of layers, just in case. It ended up being super hot because, even though we were hiking among huge mountains and glaciers, we were in the valleys and not the peaks. The sun was out, so we were toasty!

First, we hiked the Tasman Valley Track and saw a glacier – our first time seeing one! It was hard to see at first because it is covered in dirt, but there were also icebergs floating in the water as well. In the picture below, the glacier is the flat section straight back adjoining the left edge of the lake.

To grasp the scale, the little dots on the lake with the white wake are boats with several people aboard! They are dwarfed by these mountains. Aoraki/Mt Cook is the snowy mountain all the way to the left.

We hiked down from the lookout to get closer to the lake.

“Why is the water such an interesting shade of grey?” we wondered. We looked it up and it is due to suspended rock particles called “rock flour”. Basically, rocks get crushed up from the ice and snow, and when the water runs off the mountains, all the rock flour mixes with it, giving the lake a milky color. It is also the cause of the turquoise color of Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki. We saw someone on the trail filling their water bottle with the water from the glacial runoff and we weren’t too sure it was a good idea. But what do we know, he probably got a full serving of his daily minerals!

After completing the Tasman Valley track, we drove over to the Hooker Valley track and ate some lunch at a picnic table before starting the trail. In the photo below you can see one of the three suspension bridges.

There was lots of water running down the mountains from the snowcaps melting in the summer sun.

The trail ends at Hooker Valley Lake, which has another glacier with icebergs. We saw two people actually swim out to an iceberg and climb on top! Not sure if that is allowed…

Greg skipped a stone on this lake that skipped for what felt like 30 seconds. Seriously, it went on forever!

Halfway through the Hooker Valley track, Greg realized his knife was missing from his pocket. He thought he may have dropped it while removing the GoPro from that pocket.

Since the trail is out and back, we glanced around the path to try to find it as we walked back to the car. We didn’t find it, so we checked the pavilion by the bathrooms to see if someone found it, but it wasn’t there. He was pretty upset because he loved that pocket knife and no one likes losing things. We gave up and walked to the car and it was on the driver’s seat! It must have fallen out when we drove from the Tasman Valley track to the Hooker Valley track. Yay!

The hikes were about 4 hours total and generally easy terrain. We drove 45 minutes back to our Airbnb in Twizel and took naps. For dinner, we ate our leftover Indian food and drank my ginger beer from Hobbiton. Then, we watched most of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but I kept falling asleep and that is no way to watch the battle of Helm’s Deep!