Day 19 Tuesday, September 14 -- Mount Cook, Take Two

Synopsis

We had spent the night in Christchurch and didn’t end up getting out of town until 9am. We called Mt. Cook Ski Planes, who said it was a better day than they expected and were currently flying. We drove the 4 hours up to Mt. Cook, back past Lake Tekapo and Pukaki, crossing our fingers that the weather would hold out. It did, and we finally got to take our flight. This turned to be the absolute highlight of Jason’s trip, and near the top of the list for Lynette. We flew past mountain after mountain, peaked over to the cloud covered West Coast towards Fox Glacier, then landed on the Tasman Glacier, NZ’s longest glacier. The views were simply amazing, and the feeling of remoteness and quiet were astonishing. It was well worth the backtrack. We drove back the way we had come, past Christchurch and Kaikoura and up to the northern end of the South Island. We stopped at about one in the morning and camped on the side of the road, about an hour past Picton where we would catch our ferry to the North Island the next morning

Detailed Journal

We got up this morning at about 7am and were on the road by 8 after doing the morning camper duties. We decided to head into town to see if the malls were open and give Mt. Cook Ski Planes a call. We got a bit lost in Christchurch, but finally found a mall, which was closed. We drove around a bit more and stumbled on another mall, which was just opening since it was now 9. We looked at a couple of places for All Blacks gear (New Zealand’s national rugby team, which kiwis are quite fanatic about), but didn’t find what we were looking for. We called Mt. Cook and they said that the weather this morning was better than they expected and were currently flying, but the outlook for the afternoon was uncertain. This was a bit disheartening news since the day before they were expecting the afternoon to be our best bet, and by now Jason didn’t think we were going to make it up to Mt. Cook before about 2pm (Lynette, however, was the driver for this venture). We got out of town as quickly as possible and headed for the mountains on a race against the weather.

We headed quickly through the towns of Ahsburton, Geraldine, Fairly, Lake Takapo and on past Lake Pukaki and in towards Mt. Cook Village. We stopped in Geraldine, about half way, and called to make sure the weather was holding out and they said that if anything it had gotten a bit better, but still weren’t 100% certain about the afternoon. As we approached Lake Pukaki, which Mt. Cook and the Ben Ohau ranges looming over it, the clouds hovering over the mountains made the outlook less-than-optimistic. But we continued on and got some really cool shots of Mt. Cook with the milky turquoise Lake Pukaki in the foreground. We arrived at the Mt. Cook airport at about 1:10 (did we mention Lynette’s driving?), and Jason ran in to see about our flight while Lynette changed clothes (which Jason had done on route). The lady behind the counter seemed pleased that we were early and said that we could leave right away, which we were anxious to do since fronts seem to blow in very quickly around there.

Jason ran back to the car to help Lynette grab all our gear and we were off. We met our pilot in the terminal, went over a safety briefing and headed out on the tarmac to board our 4-seat Cessna. The other passenger was a lady who was from the area, but had moved to Vail where she got married to an American and remains “stuck” in Vail (they both drive busses, so we weren’t exactly sure why they were stuck there, but she seemed like a nice enough lady). We think she knew someone who worked there and got to ride along for free, lucky duck! We got belted in and were off, flying away from Mt. Cook at first to get altitude, then heading up the Tasman valley where we were quickly consumed by the incredible mountains of Mt. Cook National Park. The craggy cliff faces, snow-covered peaks and bumpy ice flows and glaciers zipped by just below and to the side of us. The snow on the peaks was so incredibly smooth in parts and the sheer amount of snow was mind boggling. As we flew close to Mt. Cook, the pilot took the camera from us and took a great shot of it out the front, then banked hard to the right, which gave us an excellent view and photo-op from the side. The pilot was very cooperative and it was obvious that he was there to give us the flight we wanted.

We continued up the valley. Below us was the left over moraine from when the Tasman Glacier was much longer, which made for a dark grayish lunar-type landscape. The snowy peaks around were a drastic contrast to the valley floor until we reached the Tasman Glacier, which weighs in as NZ’s longest at 12 km. He asked if we were interested in seeing the West Coast because it would be a bit of a bumpy ride. Jason asked if there would be a view, so we gained some altitude to take a look over the ridge towards the coast. As we crested the ridge, we could see that the clouds were fairly packed in over there and we decided to stick to our side, cut the flight a bit short and get a partial refund. It was pretty amazing to see the difference in the weather between the west and east side of the ridge of mountains. On our side it was a fine day with a few white clouds here and there, and on the west side were ominous looking clouds, reaching up and slightly over the ridge, which were probably producing a good bit of rain.

At that point, the pilot decided to take a quick loop around the top of the Tasman glacier, giving us a great stomach in our throat ride, as well as some close-ups of a hut, perched in the middle of no where on top of a cliff, and some huge crevasses in the glacier. We then went in for our landing, which our guidebook called heart-stoppingly short, which wasn’t far off. We landed uphill, did a u-turn, then he switched off the engines and we jumped out onto the glacier. He told us that we were standing on top of 1500 meters of snow and ice that comprised as the top of the Tasman Glacier. It was an unbelievable scene, one which will not be easily matched in future journeys. If our long drive from Kaikoura and back didn’t seem worth it already (which it did), this certainly did the trick. This was the highlight of the trip so far for Jason, and probably would remain that way. We snapped an amazing panoramic, along with some close-ups of a few of the highlights of the scene before we posed for a few pictures that the pilot took. We sat in the peaceful valley chatting and enjoying the enormous views. When no one was talking or moving, the saying, “the silence was deafening” made a lot of sense. It actually sounded like being deaf, with an absolute non-existence of sound.

After a little while on the snow, the pilot broke the news that we had to be heading back. The takeoff was just as thrilling as the landing, with the pilot keeping the sleds on the snow for much longer than necessary, which gave a fun ride down the glacier. The flight down was more entertaining than the ride up, with the pilot hugging the mountainside, swerving into steep-sided valleys along the way. Before long, Lake Pukaki came back into view, and we glided down on the the Mt. Cook runway and the trip was over. We piled out of the Cessna and the pilot asked if we had a good time, which would have been an understatement. The grin on Jason’s face said it all, and the ladies at the desk in the airport didn’t even have to ask to see that we had a wonderful trip.

We crawled back into the van, shed some layers and headed down the road a bit more into Mt. Cook Village to catch one last glimpse of Mt. Cook. The diversion was worth it, providing a postcard view up the valley we had hiked 2 weeks before (on the Hooker Glacier trail) with Mt. Cook standing tall over it. At this point, we started our long journey to the far north of the South Island so that we could see the area briefly before boarding our ferry to the North Island the next morning. A cloud settled in over Mt. Cook as we left and didn’t move as long as the mountain was in sight, as if to say, “ok, it’s time for you to move on.” And we did. Jason’s heart sank as we drove out of the Southern Alps for the last time (for this trip, anyway). There’s something special about those mountains that makes the heart yearn to return. But, on our way out, we talked about all the other trips we want to take in our lifetime and it seemed unlikely that we’d return anytime soon with all the other wonderful things to see in this world. Despite feeling sad to leave, we are blessed to have had the opportunity to experience them, and the memories (and hundreds of pictures) will be with us forever.

And so began what would be a 9-hour drive back through Christchurch (with a brief stop at KFC to pick up some dinner to go) and Kaikoura, then up through Blenheim towards Nelson. The ride was more or less uneventful as Jason drove while Lynette tried to get some sleep in case we had to drive long into the night. Due to our limited time in the morning, we decided to give up on seeing Abel Tasman National Park. At about 12:30am, Jason pulled off the road, somewhere about half way between Nelson and Picton. Neither of us felt like driving further, so we camped there for the night.

Pictures

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