September
4th September
Hello again. Welcome back to our blog. This month we wanted to return to Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook to see them in the winter time. We also wanted the opportunity to try a walk through the Hooker Valley which has some spectacular views of the Southern face of Mt Cook, the Hooker Glacier and Mt Sefton.
We headed off on Saturday with the intention of travelling down through Geraldine. We were anxious to see the country side between Geraldine and Fairlie. It was an overcast day but one of those overcast days we have in the south island were shafts of sunlight regularly pierce the clouds along luminous, silver edges casting a glow on the horizon.
The country side between Geraldine and Fairlie was magnificent as we had heard. Rolling green hills with the ocassional line of snow capped mountains on the horizon. I heartily recommend this particular drive. Do be prepared to be held up by the odd flock of sheep as we were.
We arrived in Lake Tekapo late in the afternoon and checked in to our accomodation. Marisa took the camera to try to capture the extraordinary late afternoon light over the lake. This picture is pretty close but as anyone in photography knows there are subtleties that camera never quite captures.
This shot was pretty close though. There is a large version of it in our photo gallery. You can get to it by clicking this one.
This view is directly at the back of the hotel we stayed in. Around the lake to the right is a drive to the Roundhill Ski Field. Around to the left is an outdoor skating rink, essentially just a shallow man made pool left to freeze. The colour of the lake itself is due to disolved minerals from the lake's glacial origin.
We had dinner in a local pub with the same maginificent view and went back to our accomodation afterwards for an early night.
--Brook
5th September 2004
We awoke early next morning and headed firstly to Twizel to see some friends and then to Aoraki Mt Cook. With an eye on the weather we began our walk. The path is well established and we met a number of other trampers along the way. The route involves crossing a couple of suspension bridges and I always find these a little unnerving.
The picture on the left is of an ice ledge, I assume a glacial outflow, on Mt Sefton. It is truly awe inspiring to see something like this high above as you walk.
We could hear occasional rumblings of avalanche activity. Since we also hear exposions we assumed these were managed avalanches to keep the mountains safe for skiers. I wonder is these New Zealanders realise that they are probably slowly changing their own alpine climate with these management strategies. Still, when you look up from below at the crushing weight of snow above its hard not to be grateful.
Currently the glaciers here are in retreat but since cycles of retreat and advance are the way of glaciers it is not really possible to say if this current retreat isn't just part of that cycle.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't with us and as rain began to fall we reluctantly turned around without reaching our destination. Still, now that we live here there will be other times.
--Brook
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