Mackenzie Country

I headed out North from Dunedin, stopped at the Cathedral Pipes, which are some rocks that look like organ pipes. My other stop on the way into the mountains were the popular Moeraki Boulders. Across a beach are numerous near-spherical boulders. They look as if they were carved by people, but it is again the work of nature. Oddly, they weren't rocks weathered by the ocean, but instead were formed in the cliffs by compressed sediment. The ocean washed away the un-rockified material, leaving only the balls behind.

After Moeraki, I headed into the mountains towards Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in Australasia. As I approached the mountains, it was extremely overcast. I remembered the words of some offered by other travelers, "If it's cloudy at the start of the Mt. Cook road, don't even bother driving up." Well at the start of the Mt. Cook road, it was crystal clear.

Mt. Cook dominates the valley for miles. It towers above everything. When in its presence, nobody asks, "So, is that Mt. Cook?" The mountain was beautiful and covered completely with snow. It certainly lived up to its reputation.

Mt. Cook wasn't the only thing covered in snow; the entire valley was buried. The highway was barely open, but all the side roads and a good number of hikes in the area were closed, including the highly recommended Tasman Glacier hike. I arrived with a couple hours before sunset, so I took a short hike to Kea Point for the park's most famous view of the mountain. There are a supposed to be two glaciers on the sides of Mt. Cook (well, they are still there), but they just blended in with the other piles of snow.
The next morning, I embarked on a hike to Hooker Lake, which was lovely, yet tiring. As the trail pushed further, it was less and less packed in. At some point, it deteriorated to a single set of foot prints through knee deep snow. A while later, it was just knee deep snow. I trudged a bit further, but this proved too tiring. I nearly to the lake anyway.

I spend the night at the beautiful Lake Tekapo. The next day, I went for a nice stroll on Mt. John, then around an arm of the lake back to town before heading to Christchurch.