After a night at one of the busiest campsites we've been in, I've noticed a couple of things. Firstly, clear nights here are incredibly full of stars, something that makes the trek to the toilets much more interesting than it should be. Hopefully we'll experience a dark, clear night soon, and be able to enjoy the stars more. My second observation is that Kiwi's quite often talk of things called (or sounding like) 'Jandals'. I would very much like to know what they are - from my research (eavesdropping) I've discovered that they're something you wear as a tired father asked his daughter whether she would like to 'Put her Jandals on'. I got excited by this conversation as I thought I'd imminently discover what they were when she out them on but unfortunately for me (and her frustrated father) the toddler vey much did *not* want to put her Jandals on, so I'm still none the wiser. Perhaps they are a combination o Jelly shoes and sandals? A croc type thing?
Anyway, we left this campsite o a refreshingly clear and bright morning, and took in some great scenery on the way to Mount Cook (Aoraki), including the Karawaru River gorge road. Rounding the bend to the Aoraki district we were a tad disappointed to see that the peaks were hidden by a strange flat cloud, but noticed that the cloud was very thin so kept our hopes up for the sun burning through. The snow capped glimpses we caught through the cloud later promised great things!
Parked up in the valley, we set of hiking along the Hooker Valley trail. This gradually led upwards to a fabulous glacial lake (at the back of the photo below). With a view of this lake, we munched on our sandwiches and cooked in the sun, now blazing through an impressively clear sky. From this spot we could also see the end of the Mount Cook glacier, as well as its peak, which appeared to have a snow 'face' on it.
After returning down the track (supposedly a 3hr10 trip, took us 2h10!) we were surprised to find ourselves with a lot of day left, so we quickly had refreshments (and a shoe change in my case - to sandals (the super glue boos are holding out well for Peter)) and set off in the Sealy Tarn track.
The description of the Sealy Tarn track promised us incredible views after a steep trek up 2200 steps. This may not sound a huge number, but 700 steps in I realised it was! A very tired Tasha reached the top, having counted 2017 steps (I was being stingy with ambiguous rock/step things). The views were indeed incredible however, with the glaciers spread out before us and a view down the valley to the impressive blue lake around 30km away.
Down was nearly as painful as up, but with the views to break it up, plus a feeling of smugness for every panting person that came past us going up. One possibly German lady even commented how is was cheating because I was wearing sandals not walking boots. This I found quite confusing as I didn't feel better off in sandals (possibly worse off as there was lots of loose gravel about) and I thought that the 15 kg big rucksack she was carrying would be much more of a handicap to her (compared to my single water bottle) as opposed to boots over sandals.
Finally reaching the bottom (in 1h45 as opposed to the suggested 3h30 - New Zealanders must walk *slowly*) and the end of a fantastic day's hiking, we scooped up an also boiling Wendy and went on to the Glentanner Park Centre to enjoy our last night together.
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