Greetings from the Old Mountaineer's Bar in Mount Cook Village. Outside, a storm is blowing a gale. Hopefully the cheap tent we bought might still be standing by the time we get back. At least the bar has an open fire and internet.
Yesterday we left Queenstown after deteriorating weather covered the Remarkables range with snow, burying the tops and also our ambitions of tackling Double Cone. Time pressures forced us to leave town and head for Mount Cook instead. The four-hour drive had some great scenery, reminding Jen of 'Little House on the Prairie'. She half expected Laura Ingalls to come running down the hill to greet us.
Arriving at the campsite, it would have been criminal to waste the late afternoon sun. We managed a three-hour walk down the Hooker Valley which included two glacial lakes, a couple of suspension bridges and several glaciers. Aoraki/Mt Cook (3,754m) towered above us. Apparently, the mountain lost 20 metres of its height following a rock avalanche in 1991.
We're keeping our fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow. We'd like to walk up to the Mueller Hut and Mt Ollivier for great views of some of the highest mountains in New Zealand. We were supposed to be up there today, but the weather got the better of us again.
