We arrived at the Hermitage Hotel at Mount Cook Village late Thursday afternoon with dark, rainy skies overhead. Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is the center of New Zealand’s South Island and has been designated a World Heritage area. The national park boasts having the highest mountain, Mt. Cook, and the longest glacier. On Friday, we woke to 35 degrees (Lesley donned 6 layers of clothing for the hike!), cloudy weather upon the mountains and some blue sky peaking through the clouds. We started the day by “tramping the hooker” (Tramping in NZ is hiking). The Hooker is the Hooker Trail to Hooker Lake & Glacier at the base of Mt. Cook (22,218 ft. high). It is a very well-known hiking trail and is one of the most popular hiking trails in the area with three swinging bridges. The swing bridges are great fun especially if there are a number of people walking across the bridge at the same time, The 6- mile round trip walk from our hotel started off in questionable weather. Clouds surrounded the nearby mountains and we still weren’t sure if Mt. Cook actually existed!. As the day progressed, the clouds broke, the sun came out and Mt. Cook came into view. It was a spectacular site.
During the day, we continued to hear thunderous sounds as avalanches erupted on the surrounding mountains. We tried to get them on camera, but most of them were obscured by the mountain clouds.
After hiking to the Hooker Lake below Hooker Glacier at the base of Mt. Cook, we hiked several other trails. 6 hours of hiking later, we called it quits and went back to The Hermitage to reward ourselves with drinks. It was a phenomenal day in the South Island.
