Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park day trip

We had a reasonably early start, 7:30am breakfast at The Greedy Cow… drove up western side of Lake Pukaki towards Mt Cook to walk the Hooker Valley up to the Glacier, was a 10km return hike

Had lunch afterwards at the Hermitage Hotel (was a bit 1970s tho!) great views of Mt Cook behind the clouds from the cafe there

The Greedy Cow cafe for breakfast
Love this! 🤣
Drove up and around Lake Pukaki – these pines trees are called Wilding pines and not native to the area, they are seen as “pests” and take over the native shrubs, trees and flowers
Lavender farm

HOOKER VALLEY HIKE

This trek is one of the most popular hikes and not too difficult at 5km in length and going up by 100m in height only and had some awesome suspension bridges along the way with breathtaking mountain scenery

Actually got a fellow tourist who took an aweome photo of us!
The first suspension bridge, they totally move while walking across
Dont look down!
The glacial melt, streams running down from the glacier
The Hooker River flowing with ice cold water!
The 2nd suspension bridge a bit shakier and longer than the first
Some of the track was boardwalk and was easy and flat
The view was constantly amazing along the walk
3rd suspension bridge
Looking back at the glacier
How do these ducks last!? Ducks floating past mini ice bergs
Just chilling and relaxing by the lake
The ice pieces were floating around and slowly melting away
Was such a great walk, loved every minute and totally recomment the walk

LAVENDER FARM

We passed by a lavender farm which we had to stop at as the colours were so beautiful!

Walking along the gorgeous flowers
Their lilac tractor!
You can ride a bike through the lavender bushes
We drove along the Tekapo Canal
Driving past the long canals you can see the salmon farms along the water

THERMAL POOL STAR GAZING

Tekapo springs star gazing was awesome! $119 each for 2hrs

The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is one of eleven worldwide and the largest one in the Southern Hemisphere

Firstly, we realised that to not pollute the night sky, Tekapo doesnt have street lights!

Instead they have shorter lantern like orange / reddish lights that are low and not bright

We got to the springs at 11:45pm for the start of our tour, we got out to the star deck and saw some nebulas and stars through their telescopes, it was a bit cloudy but we caught some stars in between

The sky was beautiful! We floated on hammocks in the pool which was 38.5 degrees and lay back and looked for shooting stars
We caught up to 6 satellites and I saw a shooting star

I loved this experience SO much! Dont miss this 🥳