OAMARU TO MOUNT COOK

Today i left Oamaru and drove west

i decided to go to Mount Cook which is on the other side of the Alps from Fox Glacier
I checked in at the motel, that's the village on the left and then went off to do some serious photography
stunning, this is zoom lens view

another zoom view of the snow on the mountain

After reading the pamphlet on the walking trails available i decided that seeing as it was 4pm i would go for a walk to the Tasman Glacier, the book said it was a 40min return journey.

First was an 8 kilometre drive down this dirt road which climbs up the mountain a bit before levelling out in the valley. I was doing 40 along here and on the narrow sharp bends that hug the cliff i was down to 20, the gravel was loose and i found that if i went over 40 the back end of the car started to slide. I must have been the only one having this problem because everyone else flew past me at 100 leaving me covered in dust and unable to see...i was not impressed.

40min round trip, piece of cake, well not really.It started off well but then turned in to mountain goat terrain, the higher i got the windier and colder it got and the gusts actually had me clinging to rock but i plowed on

this was a quarter of the way up. I actually over took some people and i soon learnt to shut my trap when i commented to one " you can do it, it cant get any worse than this " then we rounded a boulder and saw that it got a lot worse and she said, rather sarcastically i thought " what was that you said ? " the last part there was no real path you picked your way vertically up rocks and the wind.....

It's a long way to the top if you wanna

have your photo taken with a glacier.

that black mass in the middle is the glacier, covered in dirt. The surface dirt is called surface moraine and it's about a metre or two thick, under that is the ice which at the point where it meets the water its about 200mt thick and around 600 metres thick further up. Where I'm standing which is quiet high from the waters edge, these pics were taken with the zoom, about 100 years ago the glacier covered the area where i am standing. and this lake didn't exist 20 years ago....it was only small puddles really, global warming ?

this is a chunk of ice that has broken off, there are a few in the lake and they are large

here is an iceberg with 2 inflatable tour boats behind it, gives you an idea of the size, the boats looked like ants when they pulled up beside the iceberg.

it was amazing standing up here and even more so because i made it and my legs never screamed once !

because a helicopter didn't come along and pick me up i had to walk back down. Remember it's a 40 min round trip ? well it took me 30mins just to get up here.

it was worth the climb. I did miss my walking buddy Clare....i had no one to complain too !

Tomorrow i have 7 more walks to do of varying lengths but now it's time for bed. It's just gone dark and it's 10.05pm, i will never get used to this...makes for a long day.