MacsTravel Blog

Aotearoa (Māori word for New Zealand, meaning “land of the long white cloud”) has no shortage of iconic destinations. At or near the top of that list is Mount Cook National Park. The Māori name, Aokari (meaning cloud piercer) best describes the majesty of the highest peak in the Southern Alps.

You may recall we were looking at Mount Cook a week ago from the Franz Josef side on the west coast of New Zealand. Now, here we are about 50 km as the crow flies on the eastern side of the mountain. For context, the shortest drive here directly from Franz Josef is 480 km!

Of course, we came north to Mount Cook via Te Anau and Queenstown, a journey that is roughly 5 and a 1/2 hours. Again we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day for the drive, and by more incredible opportunities to pull over and take in the view.

A few things to know about driving in New Zealand:

1. Gas is expensive- on average it was 2.50 New Zealand $ per litre. We were glad to be driving small cars that got good mileage.

2. The roads are narrow, windy and two lanes wide but are for the most part in good repair. There are spots where passing lanes or wide shoulders allow you to overtake slow vehicles or move aside for tailgaters. This is particularly welcome in the mountains.

3. There are lots of marked spots to pull over and have a roadside break or take an iconic photo. We took full advantage of these.

4. Public washrooms are frequently available and, almost without fail, are in great condition.

5. There is no litter. Anywhere! The roadside ditches are free of it and campsites, trails and roadside stops are clean as a whistle. I think this speaks to the high level of pride and respect Kiwi’s have for their homeland. Clearly it rubs off on the visitors to some degree as well.

6. There are no people. Well, not a lot of people at any rate. There are only 1.2 million people in the entire South Island and they are mostly clustered on the east coast. This is out of a total population of just over 5 million. When you are driving through the central and western areas of the South Island it feels as if even this small number is dramatically inflated. For example, only about 500 people live in Fiordland National Park! The map below (thanks Map Kiwi) provides a great visual of the population of these areas.

To get to Aokari Mount Cook from Queenstown you have to drive through the Lindis Pass. When Robin sees the word “pass” on road signs she starts hyperventilating, with visions of steep cliffside drives in the Dolomites coming back to haunt her. This drive was, in fact, pretty good, and not nearly as jittery an experience as driving along the twisting switchbacks of the Crown Range Road (the highest road in New Zealand) from Franz Josef to Queenstown a week ago.

What the Lindis Pass did have were incredible views and some excellent spots to pull over and take it all in.

After coming down through the pass and passing Twizel (home of the Twizzler?), the last town on the way to Aokari, we took the winding and spectacular route up Mount Cook Highway, the final 30 minutes along the glacial green shores of Lake Pukaki with the mountain range in the background. It’s a beautiful road when the sun is shining.

We arrived in Mount Cook Village where we had booked a room at the Hermitage hotel. It turned out our room boasts one of the only balconies in the hotel and incredible views of Aokari Mount Cook from the giant picture window. What a place to wind up our trip.

Knowing that mixed weather was coming the next day we dumped our bags and headed out to take full advantage of the weather.

We hiked up to see the Tasman Glacier view and took a second trail to the end of Terminal Lake which sits below the glacier in the valley where the glacier could still be found in the 1990’s. The pace of this glacier’s decline is alarming: up to 800 meters a year. The view up the valley towards Tasman shows the shorelines of Terminal lake lined with tonnes and tonnes of gravel that had been ground down by glacial pressure over tens of thousands of years. Small gravel specked icebergs huddled together at the near end of the lake. As the inevitable warning sign told us, this was a volatile area, prone to dramatic and sudden changes.

We got back to the hotel and passed on the restaurant, ordering a bottle of wine and takeout pizza a decision that we would repeat the following night! The views from the balcony and the room were amazing.

The next day dawned with spectacular views and coffee, followed by white out snow squalls, the first snow we had seen since early February in Canada!

We planned a coffee themed morning followed by hiking in the afternoon hoping that the clouds would clear enough to allow us to take in the views on the Hooker Trail of the Hooker glacier and lake and of Aokari Mount Cook. The trail is famed for its three swing bridges over the Hooker River and beautiful scenery.

The snow stopped by 1:30 leaving lots of time for the 10 km hike. By about 30 minutes in the sun was out and the scenery was absolutely glorious as you can see from the pictures below.

This was our last “adventure day” in New Zealand. Next comes the drive to Christchurch and an early night in preparation for two days of travel. Christchurch— Auckland—San Francisco — Chicago — Toronto. Thanks United Airlines.

We feel so incredibly fortunate to have had this chance to see such an amazing part of the world. Our thanks again to Sarah and Ian, Patty and Graham and our travelling buddies Lisa and Pete for making the Australia leg so memorable. We met some amazing people in both Australia and New Zealand and certainly came away impressed and humbled by the hospitality of folks in both countries.

It’s been seven incredible weeks but we are looking forward to going home to see our family, friends, and favourite dog. Love you all.

On a final note, thanks for reading our blog. Initially I imagined that I might compose 6-10 entries and that it would be read mainly by a few family members. Obviously we got into the swing of it, and we ended up with almost 500 different visitors over the seven weeks of the trip, which was a little shocking. We are signing off now, but feel encouraged to try the blog again on our next trip.

Until then!

R&R