Saturday 26th February

We breakfasted in the hotel dining room.  We had waited until the coach groups had left so for almost all of our breakfast we were on our own.

We left just before 10am and drove north towards Twizel.  The valley was very wide and a totally different landscape from anything we had seen.

We stopped in Twizel which was a town built just for the workers for the construction of the hydro electric dams.  In 1985 when the dams opened, the plan was to demolish the town but many of the residents were happy there and convinced the Council to leave the town intact.

The town has nothing to recommend it to the tourist but it is slowly growing into an alpine resort that is cheaper than Mount Cook.  It is being used as a centre for some of the people who have relocated from Christchurch and the town seem to be doing things to help them to settle in.

Many of the scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed in this area and we went to the i-hub to see a free exhibition about the film.  Unfortunately the display was being dismantled, although we saw Gandalf’s staff, Frodo’s dagger and Aragorn’s sword.

We decided to carry on to Aoraki Mount Cook and have morning coffee there. (Aoraki Mount Cook is the only place in New Zealand where it uses both the Maori and the European name, where the Maori name is given first) The scenery was stunning and as we drove along the side of Lake Pukake, the sun started to shine and we were getting fantastic views of Aoraki Mount Cook. 

We went to The Old Mountaineer’s Cafe for coffee and sat out on the balcony in hot sunshine, looking up at Aoraki Mount Cook.

After a little research Ian found out about the track up to The Tasman Glacier.  We drove 8km out to the car park on a gravel road and had our lunch.  We then walked 30min to a point overlooking Lake Tasman which is at the end of the glacier.  There were huge icebergs floating on the lake that had broken away from the glacier exactly 7 seconds after the Christchurch Earthquake.

Ian walked up a further hill to get better views of the lake and the glacier.

We retraced our steps almost to the car park before heading off on the alternative track to The Blue Pools.  When we arrived there they were not blue but a vivid green colour. Linda was still smiling at this stage.

We climbed a little further but the quality of the track degraded considerably.  Linda said that if she was meant to climb mountains she would have four legs and hooves like a goat!!  She decided that the final scree was too dangerous for her to attempt so stayed where she was while Ian scrambled to the top and came back saying that the view of the glacier was worth the effort.  Linda totally disagreed with him.

We drove to our hotel, The Hermitage, at Aoraki Mount Cook, and found that we had been given a suite of rooms, very reminiscent of our hotel stays in Canada.  We had a long balcony outside the bedroom and the lounge where we were able to sit to drink our afternoon tea and drink in the fabulous views of the mountains.

We had dinner in the Panorama Restaurant and it was superb.   After ordering our starter we were brought a small complimentary starter of Fijian Style Blue Nosed Condor (some sort of fish).  Linda had a starter of home smoked salmon, while Ian had a soft shelled crab (complete with legs and claws which he ate) on an avocado and cream base.  We both had the lamb served medium rare which was delicious.  It would have been rude not to have dessert so we indulged ourselves.  Coffee and Tea were served at the table and along with them a small tray of complimentary mini desserts.  The view from the restaurant was splendid and we watched the different light effects on Aoraki Mount Cook as the sun went down; you could not have wished for better on a film set (think of the logo for Paramount Pictures).  Far too much food was eaten before we retired to the room to write the blog and sort out the photos.