Visiting the Land of the Kiwis(Pt 2)

Welcome back to my series where we take a look at our journey down under! In our previous post we took a look at our brief journey from Queenstown to Mount Cook, now we will be taking our first stop at the wonderful Mount Cook!

The journey from Queenstown to Mount Cook was surely a sight to see. Its hard to count how many different landscapes we saw, but 10 minutes in we saw massive mountains, then the next thing you now were surrounded by these human sized rolls of grass!(I like to call them giant marshmallows)

(Look at that difference!)

And oh my gosh! Look over there! A sheep!

Again, there's another sheep! Wow there really are a lot of those here.

Oh..! Another sheep...

(Fun fact in the southern island of New Zealand, there are 6 sheep for every human, I know right? That's a heck of a lot of sheep!)

The one stop we made on our 3 hour trip there was at Lake Pukaki. I have literally never seen any water so clear in my life, escpecially in such a large body of water. And while I was busy being chased around by the biggest bee I've seen in my life, (which I managed to snap a picture of) we could see the infamous Mount Cook peaking out from the other less-snowy mountains. I never thought I would see snow from the same area I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt in, but, there is a first time for everything! Aside from trying to feel the fresh mountain water that the lake consisted of, we finally embarked on our last 45 minutes of the journey to our lodge situated and the base of Mount Cook.

I was excpecting at least a small town, considering how famous this spot it, but against my prediction, there were only about 4 buildings. Two of those buildings being what made up the massive lodge for visitors. Mount Cook is easily one of the most magical places I have ever been to. As my family and I explored the walkways around the area, it simply felt so surreal being surrounded by all the mountains. I never breathed such fresh and crisp air, let alone be in such a remote place.

Aside from the lodge, there was another small building, a little more isolated. Here was where several tourist attractions and activities were. That building is where we went to embark on our glacier hike. Oh! My bad, I forgot to mention the massive glacier that sat right underneath Mount Cook. And somehow we were able to hike it!

We got these spikes we could add onto our shoes and hiking poles, after all, we were hiking on ice. And for a giant piece of ice, all I needed were a long sleeved shirt and pants and was still hot up there! Our guide took us through several crevices and little ice caves in the ice, and we even refilled our water bottles in the water we found flowing through the glacier. I mean, that water is the purest it gets! We saw lots of little waterfalls as well, and I've never been surrounded by more mountains and ice in my life.

And after we arrived back to 'home base', I saw my dad feel around his pockets, only to realize that he left our rental car keys in the helicopter we took to the glacier! So after another lengthy 30 minutes, we could finally unwind in our hotel room.

That's all for today's post folks, thanks for reading and see you in part three!