Yesterday we didn’t have any wireless service ☹ But, today we do so, yay! More blogging! Yesterday we woke up at around 9 o’clock and checked out of Hotel So. We were sad to see our little pink room go, but we were ready to hit the road! We got some bagels at “The Yellow Rocket”, a place that was recommended to us by the Canadians we met in Sydney. It was delicious and with breakfast behind us, we head out of Christchurch and towards the town of Ashburton, heading towards Mt. Cook and Lake Tepaco. Mt. Cook is the highest peak in the Southern Alps, with Lake Tepaco within and surrounded by the mountains.
So, we passed through the plains of Canterbury, passing small towns along the way. We could see small mountains to our right in the distance, which got us excited to see Mt. Cook. We went through a few different towns and took some stops, but mostly we kept going along the two lane road, seeing tons and tons of sheep and cattle along the way. It's true that there are sheep EVERYWHERE. This place is wool city. We were getting closer and closer to the mountains and when we came over a hill we saw bright turquoise blue. It was Lake Tepaco. Honestly, I’ve never seen something so blue. It was beautiful and it literally took our breath away. The pictures I post will probably not do it justice. The snow- capped mountains were in the background and it was my first taste of the stunning scenery that I’ve heard so much about. We continued on to a The Church of Good Shepherd, a little chapel right on the lake. It was quite tiny but with the lake beside it, it was extraordinary. At this point we had been driving for at least 3 hours or so, but we were just getting to the good part! Mt. Cook was our next stop and as we headed that way we passed Lake Pukaki and got the best look at Mt. Cook yet in the distance. The water on this lake was perfectly still and the reflection of the sky and the surrounding mountain could be seen on the lake. It was stunning. I actually got some pretty great pictures of it, which I will post soon. The water and the sky were the same color and the sun was shining bright, making it nice and warm…definitely warmer than in Christchurch! It was perfect…I was in shorts and a tank top! I could not complain about anything.
We finally arrived at Mt. Cook National Park and checked into our “motel”. These motels are separated from the actual hotel, but we have our own little kitchen and it’s quite spacious. This is the only hotel/motels available around because the National Park has certain restrictions on what can be built. We went on a hike, a pretty easy one compared to all the trails. It took us an hour in total but it definitely gave me a workout! We went out to Kea Point and got another great view of Mt. Cook and Mount Shelton. We then drove 15 minutes to a trail that took us to the Blue Lakes and a view of the Tasman Glacier. This hike was very uphill. Even though it was only a ten-minute hike…it was uphill! The blue lakes ended up being very small and GREEN, which was disappointing. They definitely lied and we were disappointed at the lack of blue. The view of the glacier was cool but a lot of it was melted because it is summer and .5% of the glacier melts every year…so less and less of the glacier is visible. There is still 200 meters of ice underneath the melted water though which is crazy! So hiked back, got some pizza at the bar/café area (the cheesiest pizza EVER) and talked to some Australians who were very very nice.
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