Mt. Cook/Tekapo (Mar. 7-8)

As we mentioned in the last post, we had no luck in Wanaka, so we cruised out to Omarama, out in the high country of Otago. It’s a pretty flat and dry area of the country, set among some impressive mountain ranges, with the huge Southern Alps on the western edge.

View from Buscot Station. The photograph doesn't do justice for what is really beautiful countryside.

Confession is good, so we’ll cop to calling ahead and getting a reservation at a certain backpackers, but once we pulled into their driveway, Becky announced that it looked a “little too Bates Motel-ish” and that she wasn’t going to stay there. I had to admit that the place looked nearly empty and a bit like a real abattoir, unlike The Old Slaughterhouse, so we drove down the road to another hostel. The next hostel didn’t suggest a creepy horror movie, so we got a couple beds there instead. I think we made the right choice, though we probably should’ve called to cancel at the other place. Not that they looked like they’d be anywhere near full that evening, but still.

Buscot Station in Omarama - much more inviting than our other choice of backpackers! If only I had gotten a photo of the lamb nibbling at the rose bushes...

The hostel we did stay at was interesting, as it was in a rather standard farmhouse (with an extra set of dorms over a garage) on a working farm, and most of the facilities were in the actual house. It was a weird juxtaposition, being one of 20-some backpackers eating dinner, watching TV, and waltzing around the kitchen in a regular house with family pictures up and all that. The hostel was nice, but imagine that many people being in your house at one time – the facilities in a typical home are just not enough, which was the case there.

Approaching Mt. Hook, kiwi-style (or with many sheep)

The next day, we didn’t really have much of a plan lined up, but when we woke up and saw that the weather was fine, we decided to go to Mt. Cook, the country’s highest mountain. We were really close to the area, wanted to see it, and had no other plan for the day, so who were we not to check it out? At this time we’d like to thank the gods of travel, who made up for the terrible weather at Franz Josef with the gorgeousity of our day at Mt. Cook.

Andrew posing in front of the snow capped mountain peaks

As the highest mountain in NZ, Mt. Cook, which is only about 40km from the sea, is often obscured by clouds. We met a German girl in a hostel earlier in our trip who waited 5 days at the base of the mountain, hoping to get some good weather so that they could get good views. Unfortunately for her, good weather didn’t materialize in her whole week there, and she left without getting to see it. Her experience seems to be quite common; the owner of our hostel in Omarama bought a video of Mt. Cook so that all the disappointed backpackers at his hostel who couldn’t see it in person due to the weather could at least see it on TV. So basically we hadn’t made plans to see the mountain at this point, but lucked into some postcard-quality weather and got to see Mt. Cook. Apparently it’s better to be lucky than good planners - we’ll take it!

Andrew surveying the clear view to the peaks

While at Mt. Cook, we also did a quick 2-hr hike in the area, up Mt. Sebastopol, where we got some great views and saw the Red Tarns, unusual copper-colored lakes. It was a great hike, basically nothing but steps uphill, a nice change from all the flat walks we’ve been on lately. We got a nice little workout and also found out that pancakes make for good trail food, who knew?

Becky with the Red Tarns below

To finish the day, we picked up groceries in the small town of Twizel, a must-stop if for no other reason than the inevitable caption for such a photo. We decided to crash in Lake Tekapo, just a bit further on, famous for its blue water, old church, and statue of a border collie. This combination must be tourist gold, as hordes of buses pull up into the town parking lot all day, their tourists flooding out, frantically snapping pictures of the statue, church, and lake. It might be a case of ‘you had to be there’, but it was pretty hilarious to see the scene replay itself exactly the same way, over and over again. Most of the people didn’t look like they knew why it was a particularly photo-worthy scene, only that the bus stops there, so they darn well will be getting their obligatory photo-ops. A place you don’t want to be: between a busful of tourists and the scene of their next photo op. We’d rather be between a mama bear and its cub; it would likely be a more dignified way to go out…

As the editor of blog posts and photos, I (Becky) must confess that I have no idea what the "inevitable caption for such a photo" would be. Any suggestions from our readers? Otherwise, I'll have to ask Andrew...

The border collie statue at Lake Tekapo. Seriously, heaps of tourists stop here to take photos of this dog. He does look very important up there on the rock...