Someone has described New Zealand as the world in a pocket handkerchief and we can confirm that following our travels yesterday through the high tundra of the awesome Lindis Pass to the Alpine landscape of Aoraki/Mt Cook, which is where we are now.
Once over the Pass the road follows a straight line for several kilometres and has become a cairn road with thousands of small cairns of stones piled along the roadside. Not to be outdone we added our own to this quirky display before heading to Twizel and thence to Aoraki/Mt Cook.
You will remember, dear reader, that a week ago we came here in the pouring rain and left without sight of the highest peak in Australasia - Aoraki/Mt Cook (3754m). So you can imagine our joy when we turned the corner from the Twizel - Lake Tekapo Road to see this vision still over 30 miles away!! Aoraki means Cloud Piercer in Maori but for us she became a cloud former as water condensed around the peak and then formed small clouds which drifted away.
We ate our picnic on the shores of Lake Pukaki in the warm sunshine before driving along the lake to the village of Aoraki/Mt Cook where we stayed last night. We do not want to make you jealous with descriptions of the warm rooms, open fires and large picture windows looking directly to the mountains so we won't mention it!!
The title of this blog refers to what we saw as we walked from the village up to a spot called Kea Point which is just above the Mueller Glacier. The sun was beginning to hide behind the mountains in this case, Mt Sefton and the clouds were back lit allowing us to see very clearly how were formed and they moved rolloing over the sky tracing 'waves' as they went. At one point the angle of the sun light hitting the ridge caused totally straight rays of light to run upward into the sky like great pillars of light.
Fogg's photos, as always, show this phenomenon brilliantly. He was snapping away and now has a wonderful bank of images to remind us of this wonderful place.
This is the path we walked, icy and snowy in places, through glorious alpine scenery - very specialised plants for this suprisingly dry and very windy place.
The walk took us to a viewpoint where we could see one of the many glaciers and its lake - The Mueller Glacier, amazing.
We are stunned, fascinated by the range of clouds over the mountains here. But most of all we have fallen in love with this lady, clearly seen from our bedroom window.
This final shot taken as the sun set slowly in the west and two very happy travellers headed to the bar!!!
With lots of love to you all
Phileas and Fogg
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