Mt. Cook

May 25, 2011

Starting out in Dunedin, we went to Baldwin Street.  Formerly, Baldwin Street was the steepest street in the world.  Then apparently GPS came around and as Spike, the driver, would say “the bloody Americans fucked up the measuring” and Lombard Street in San Francisco is actually steeper.  Still, we had a good walk up it and it is still labeled as the steepest street in the world.

Not long after departing Dunedin we went to the Moeraki Boulders.  These are large, massive round rocks on the beach.  What a beautiful day!  Again blue skies and since we arrived in the morning there was still a tinge of colorful light in the sky.  A lovely setting.

We pretty much booked it all the way to Mt. Cook so that we could make it in time for our iceberg tour.  The largest glacier in New Zealand is here and it’s called the Tasman Glacier.  At the base of it is a lake, formed only in the 1970s.  Pieces of the glacier will break off and fall into the lake and become icebergs.  They reckon it takes 300 years for a piece of ice to make it from the top of the glacier down into an iceberg on the lake.

We took boats out on the lake and got up close and personal with all the icebergs.  We picked ice and ate it and took photos with big chunks of ice.  It was a lot of fun.  

After the icebergs we watched a 3D movie filmed here in Mt. Cook.  If you didn't know, Mt. Cook is New Zealand's highest peak.  It's also where Sir Edmund Hilary honed his climbing skills before taking on Mt. Everest.

Tomorrow we leave from here late and head to Rangitata.  I was looking forward to this bit because they have water rafting there.  But apparently the water rafting is over for the winter.  So I guess we’ll just do some walks and chill.