The next stop on the itinery was the undisputed king of New Zealand's peaks - Mt Cook. The mauri name of Aoraki, 'cloud piercer' poetically captures the mountain's stature and majesty. We'd seen a TV documentary about the Aoraki Mountain Rescue Team and the footage was stunning, the summit coming to a point, high above the surrounding peaks.
It would take us virtually the whole day to drive from Kinloch to Mt Cook, loading up on groceries in Queenstown on the way, but our first glimpse of the mountain made the trek worthwhile. The sky was cloudless and the road ran along the shores of the most irridescent turquoise lake we'd ever seen. Apparently, Lake Tekapo was filled with rock flour, a fine suspension of glacially pulversied rock which reflected the sky as brilliantly as a turquoise gemstone. At the head of the lake stood Mt Cook, flanked by deep valleys and was reflected as a perfect morror image in the lake.
We checked out the visitors centre at Mt Cook village, picking up some leaflets that detailed walking tracks that would provide the best views of the mountain. Next to a window which framed Aoraki perfectly, there was a weighty folder - a book of rememberance for those who'd lost their lives climbing or trekking in the area. It was both moving and scary to read the entries - especially as the most recent tragedies had occured during our stay on the South Island.
Alex took a walk but I was till suffering the effects of an infection picked up on the Routeburn and went back to the hostel. I was made to regret not going with her because the next two days were wet and low cloud completely obscured the landscape. It was so frustrating that we were unable to explore an area of such natural beauty and drama. By the time we left, we'd made one aborted attempt to take a walk and had actually spent more time in the mountaineer's cafe than in the mountains but at least we could say we'd seen the mighty clous piercer!
Here's a question - There are three glaciers which flow through rain forest on their journey from snowy mountain tops toward the sea. One is in Argentina, where are the other two? An eight hour drive to the final destination on the 'Mad Month' would lead us to the answer. A huge loop took us from Mt Cook in a wide anticlockwise circle, past Wanaka then Haast before we drove through Fox and ended up in Franz Josef. The final two destinations provided the answer to the question, the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers being the only other two glaciers which pass through rain forest and not wanting to show any favouritism, we based ourselves in one and backtracked to the other!
The five-star YHA was more like a hotel but the teatime scrum in the kitchen was pretty much identical to all the other hostels we'd stayed in as serious faced mutlinationals danced intricate patterns round each other, pretending all the while that everyone else was either plague ridden or invisible.
We drove th 20km's to Fox for that afternoon's guided walk on the glacier. We were given old boots that could conceivably have been pre-owned by Captain Scott and crazy combos of metal and leather straps - crampons to help us walking on the ice. A short bus ride later and we were trekking towards a large jumble of rock that had been bulldozed down the valley by the glacier - the terminal morain. Hiking up past this and then over more boulders that the glacier had gouged out of the vally sides (lateral morain), we stopped and affixed our crampons, ready to take to the ice. Oue guide went first, expertly windmilling a pickaxe into the ice precairiously close to his feet to cut steps, making our ascent less dangerous. We were soon standing on top of the fox Glacier, not a pure white frozen river of ice as I'd imagined but rubble strewn from its excavations, some of the boulders it had dislodged on its relentless progress were the size of houses. There were deep crevasses and ice tunnels, blue ice glistening within and high above we could see the neve where countless snowfalls had compressed and begun their inexorable descent down into the valley.
After this, we thought we'd check out the Franz Josef Glacier too. This time we chose to put some distance between ourselves and th glacierto view it in the context of its surroundings. There was a track which ran parallel to the glacier which had several viewpoints along the way before coming to an end at the humourously named Alex Knob! The cloud base was fairly low but we were committed to the task and climbed steadily up through the forest toward the treeline.
It started to rain when we were about two thirds of thee way along the trail. Lightly at first, almost like a fine mist. After enjoying good views of the glacier lower down the valley, the higher viewpoints provided nothing more than a grey curtain of precipitation. We pressed on and the rain intensified. We wouldn't be defeated though - 'Sod the rain, let's get to the Knob anyway!'.
By the time we had got back to the car we'd reached saturation point, our waterproofs rendered useless. Infact, they had a detrimental effect, acting like drainpipes, funnelling the rain down into our shoes which were like soggy sponges on our feet. Worse still, when we finally got back to the hostel, the drenching had released all manner of pent up aromas accumulated during our travels. We dried them using the heating in our room but the window only opened a fraction, leaving the room smelling unearthly, in a ripe, cheesy kind of way with a hint of cat pee and vinegar... so, many apologies to the people who had the misfortune to stay there after us!
|
