This post is a bit late, but I finally got around to sifting through my hundreds of Mt Cook photos!
Last Sunday, we all piled into the car and headed out to Mt Cook, which is about a four hour ride on winding, narrow highways. Fortunately, the journey is punctuated by a few stops: scenic viewpoints in Fairlie, Lake Tekapo, and Lake Pukaki.
Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki were both spectacular shades of turquoise due to water from the melting glaciers. The mountains surrounding the lakes were beautiful and the lupins were just starting to bloom. It was still pretty chilly, so we walked around a lot to stay warm.
After the two lakes, we stopped at Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park for some hiking. The trail in Hooker Valley was sunny, so it was easy to stay warm. Ayaka insisted on counting every single board in the boardwalks. The trail had a big suspension bridge which nearly claimed our hats, and we stopped for a snack on the other side of the bridge.
We grabbed dinner at a Thai restaurant on the way back. A lot of things close pretty early here, but there were fortunately a decent amount of restaurants to choose from at Lake Tekapo. Ayaka and Madoka had plenty of soda with dinner, so they were pretty squirrelly on the way home! I learned that if you want to make Ayaka laugh uncontrollably, all you have to do is whisper “granny’s green undies” in her ear.
We got some beautiful shots of the sunset and ended up returning home at around 11:30pm. All in all, a great day!
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