Coe & Janet’s Kiwi Adventure-Post #6

We have had such a busy and beautiful last couple days that I am going to split this into two separate blog posts.

This post will cover Thursday’s short hike on the Governor’s Bush Track and a spectacular helicopter ride.

We traveled from Lake Tekapo to Aoraki/Mt. Cook. It was foggy in the morning but cleared up in the afternoon and was a gorgeous day Here is our first views of Aoraki/Mt. Cook looking up Lake Pukaki. Mt. Cook is 12,218’ high and the highest peak in New Zealand. Sir Edmund Hillary, trained on Mt. Cook for his summit of Everest.

As we traveled up the lake, the views grew even better.

Once into Mt. Cook Village we visited the very nice visitor’s center, gathered lots of info, did a little shopping and looked at the impressive exhibits. I loved these pieces of stained glass illustrating the plants and animals of Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park.

We had a little bit of time so we went for a 1 mile hike where we saw our first real forest.

Following our short hike, we headed for the airfield and our helicopter tour. We had arranged this ahead of time and wondered if it would be worth the time and money. It turned out to be well worth it as we saw things we never would have otherwise. Here is our helicopter waiting to take us on our adventure. And here are our tourist companions, staring wide-eyed wondering what we are getting them into. They came for the whole ride safely tucked into Grandma’s pocket.

We’re belted in, hooked up, and ready to go. And we’re off. This is what they call a “braided river” in New Zealand and you can see why. It is coming off the Tasman glacier.

The flight is taking us up the Tasman glacier and the first thing we see is Tasman Lake at the bottom of the glacier. This lake didn’t even exist 30 years ago and with the receding of the glacier it has formed in that time. At the end of the lake you can see the edge of the ice. It regularly calves into the lake. It is covered with gravel that it has scraped off the sides of the mountain.

As we travel up the valley, we see more, small, glaciers on the mountains on our sides.

This is the Tasman glacier which we are following up the valley.

And UP!

And we finally land on the top of the Tasman glacier.

Here are five pictures looking around the top of the glacier.

We take off from the glacier and climb even higher to see more peaks. This first picture is looking down the Tasman glacier from the very top.

This picture shows a climbing hut. These huts are all over the country on the most popular climbs and tracks (trails). This one is just amazing. It is the little red building on the knife edge of the rock ridge. I can’t even imagine how you would get there. Expand the picture to see it better.

These are pictures of some of the highest peaks in the Southern Alps.

This is an amazing picture to me. It is at the top of a glacier, looking down the valley to the river and plain below all the way to the west coast of New Zealand. So you are looking from the highest point all the way down to the sea. Wow!