It is a 4 hour journey to Mount Cook and I shared the driving with Lyall. The first part is along the coast north from Dunedin with some attractive views. We then turned inland and followed the Waitaki River valley, some of which is rather bleak. It was also very windy and we had to moderate our speed as our small car was bouncing along. We passed 3 dams and Aviemore is shown here with a horizontal wind sock, as the water is driven across Lake Aviemore.
There was very little other traffic as we got nearer to the Southern Alps which provided a snow capped background across Lake Pukaki.
Mount Cook is a small village with the majestic Hermitage Hotel, where Clodagh and I had a room with a superb balconied view to Mount Cook, which unfortunately was shrouded in cloud throughout our short stay.
Lyall and I took a walk towards Mount Cook along one of the well,defined tracks and I wished we had been able to spend another night here so that we could get in a really good mountain walk in this beautiful setting.
Our track was surrounded by multi-coloured wild lupins. Clodagh had bought me a packet of seeds of these and I look forward to growing these to remind me of this lovely spot.
Back to the hotel for a good buffet meal in the large dining room with its magnificent view of the mountains. We hoped the cloud would clear for a rose tipped view of the mountain at sunset but no joy.
The next morning Mount Cook was still shrouded in cloud as we left early so we could have breakfast on route. What a pity we did not have more time to stay longer.
Robert Cole
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