We left Queenstown after picking up our rental SUV which we will be driving for the rest of our trip. We filled the back of the car with our stuff, but the front two rows were quite comfortable!
Our first stop was at Arrowtown which was founded in 1862 — a mining town. It is still quite quaint and has a lot of original houses….plus lots of shopping!
We next stopped at a river where there was an electric plant pouring tons of water into the river. It was quite picturesque! The overlook was named Roaring Meg. We had sampled the wine and now we could see the water named after her.
We came to the town of Cromwell, the center of the “fruit bowl” of New Zealand. There is a vineyard that was built around a famous tree in the town called “The Wooing Tree”. Many proposals, weddings and conceptions have happened there, the latter, hopefully, in the middle of the night.
The scenery became more and more beautiful as we drove and after awhile we started to see mountains!
We passed a famous pass……but we passed!
We looked in at a lavender farm….but ended up not being impressed with the products. However, the scent as you pulled in was marvelous!!!!
Soon, we arrived at Twizel (pronounced with a long I) where a high school classmate of John’s consulted on the development of large residential lots with a club house. We drove by it and looked around – very nice with a view of the mountains! We were especially amused by the large ram at the entrance.
The views became even more spectacular and we came across our first lupines. I saw them in Iceland but still enjoyed how beautiful they are.
Just a funny car we saw at our lunch stop….
Lots of one way bridges — this sign shows you if you have the right of way — or not.
And then, the mountains…..and The Hermitage at Aoraki Mount Cook.
This is actually Melissa and Karl’s room; I forgot to take pictures of ours. Ours was the same but they had taken out the second bed (left the headboard — haha).
The view out of the window was straight onto Mount Cook!
We were extremely lucky — no clouds to obstruct the view. Wow! What a way to spend New Year’s Eve!!!!
The next morning Melissa took sunrise pictures on Mount Cook – so beautiful and pink! And then we were off for our helicopter trip onto the Tasman Glacier and down the valley connected to the glacier with views of Mt. Cook. It’s a good thing we had the long trip first. This pilot flew us right over and close to the mountains. Melissa took videos and she was in the passenger seat on the left side of the helicopter; we were close! She would have had a panic attack if this were the first flight. This one was only 35 minutes, start to finish.
Almost unbelievable, the color of the picture when the sun hit the top of Aoraki!
By the way, Aoraki is the Maori name; Mt. Cook the British name.
We were on the orange route below — a total of 35 minutes which included a glacier landing.
And then we landed.
And then we were back up. Notice how close our pilot flew to the crests and to the sides of the mountain. It is just as well that we had the first flight first. He was way more considerate of letting us know if there would be a bump and never had us even remotely close….somewhat thrilling!
And back to the airport….
One last beautiful shot of the mountain — amazing weather:
Our flight was at 11:00 a.m. When we finished we watched two back to back movies at the theater on the premises of the hotel. The first was about the rescues on the mountain and the second one was a 3D one which started with the Maori legend about the creation of Aoraki Mt. Cook. Then it followed a large bird flying over the island. Both were wonderful, but the first was really interesting……how many, many rescues there are every summer. So many mountain climbers end up in trouble! John thought the second was the best 3D he had ever seen.
We took a break to eat something and the rain started. All of our outdoor time this trip was wonderful. We didn’t care at all if it rained at this point. At some point we watched some of the A & M game:
There was another movie at 5:15 p.m. about the life of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach the top of Mt. Everest with his Nepalese sherpa. He was born in 1919 and he was alive and interviewed in the movie so it must have been made awhile ago. His life story is very moving; he had a number of sad things occur during his lifetime – also great achievements!
We had dinner at a place just a short walk from the hotel.
I took a picture of Mount Cook from the dining room the next morning. I would have been so sad if we had driven all the way to it and this was our view. You are not even seeing Mt. Cook! No sightings, no pictures, no helicopter ride. We had a wonderful experience at Mount Cook.
And then we were off for our next destination.
Beth
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