We are now coming close to finishing our loop of South Island, but before we head back to Christchurch, we are making a slight detour to Mount Cook Village in the Southern Alps. The village is in the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. This was established in 1953 and along with Westland National Park, Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park forms one of the New Zealand UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The park is named after the highest peak – Mount Cook – but also contains more than 140 peaks standing over 2,000 metres. Ice and snow are something of a theme in the park with 72 named glaciers, which cover 40 percent of its 700 square kilometres.
Our drive from Cromwell to Mount Cook was less than three hours and took us through some stunning scenery. Around this area, you lurch from one amazing view to another, but it was interesting to see how the landscape changed. Passing through the Lindis Pass there was little vegetation and the hills were essentially barren, but then as the valley beyond opened up, some farming returned. Turning off the main road towards Mount Cook, we entered a classic u-shaped glacial valley, following the edge of the lake and river up to Mount Cook Village.
For lunch we headed off to find an appropriate viewpoint. This is not tricky round here as everywhere you look is an amazing view, but we decided to follow one of the local tracks to what they call the Kea viewpoint. From there we could just see the end of the Mueller glacier, though we could see plenty of evidence of where it had been with a glacial lake and lateral moraines left behind as the glacier retreated. Not a bad lunch stop ….
While we were having lunch a sudden really loud crack, like thunder, made us look up, suspecting we might suddenly get wet. If we were sat the other side of the valley in the wrong place we might have got wet (or worse!) as we were watching an avalanche. We watched snow cascading down the rocks as the combination of gravity and melting snow re-arranged the snow pack downwards! It was a very minor avalanche, but an amazing sight nevertheless and a reminder of the care which needs to be taken in these areas.
