It was nice drive from Christchurch to Mt.Cook via Tekapo took about 5 hours.
Because of full booking of Hermitage Hotel, we took a Mt.Cook Motel.
The motel was nice and the price was reasonable. Facilities were kitchen, TV, phone and shower. We planed to cook at the motel, but could not find a market in the village.
So, I recommend that you should buy foods before getting here.
The provider I use does not have any access point in foreign country, unfortunately, so I have to make a international call to Japan to check an e-mail.
It was less expensive compared with American certain high quality hotel I stayed this summer on business trip (\25,000 per day!) charged 35US$ for telephone call to Japan.
I had to check e-mail because I am a Japanese business man even in vacation, but looked at only a title of it and sent a mail to my family.
New Zealand is a safe country but we have to communicate with my family sometimes, because fear of terrorism was still considered even here in New Zealand.
Though the weather was occasional rain the day, we got information that tomorrow would be a sunny day at the information center.
I sometimes got up in the night and watched the sky to confirm the weather.
Then I unexpectedly found "Southern Cross" and "Magellanic Cloud".
I remembered that had read in a book that a nebula bigger than the moon can be seen in the south sky.
There was a pair of "Magellanic Cloud" !
Though I had an interest in space and stars, had forgotten seeing stars for a long time.
Now it reminded me seeing a "Magellanic Cloud" was my dream.
I made it!Mt.Cook Village
The sound of "Village" match well. But many tourists come and leave soon, very busy village.
Here is the place to stay for a few days, I think.
It was really lucky that we able to see a starlit sky
The wetter was nice, none of the clouds in the sky. We took sandwich with us and went to Hooker Valley Track. Hikers met on the way exchange greetings"Hi !", "Hello!". It made us pleasant. Everyone looked happy and enjoying the trekking under the blur sky, seldom can be seen here.
The 15km Fooker hike was a little hard for us, though, gave us unforgettable memories.
"Amassing","Magnificent","Great" I did not know the appropriate word to express the impression in English. I only repeated "Sugoi!!" many times in Japanese.Because of rain much area, the figure of Mt.Cook in the blue sky is rarely seen. We walked toward the top of a glacier, but we have to go beyond the Fooker Lake to see it. Waking on a glacier was on of my dream to do in New Zealand, but it was too tough. So we gave up it..
After coming back to Japan, I found many same photos.
There were so many good-looking points, so I took many photos both on my way to and from the Mountain unconsciously.
Anyway the weather was absolutely fine.
It was a perfect day for trekking..
| Mt.Cook was beautiful and we really wanted to stay a few more days. But today is the day to leave for Queenstown. Lunch at Wanaka. |
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