I took the early bus from Twizel to Mount Cook National Park which houses the largest mountain in the country. You guessed it, Mount Cook. It stands at roughly 3,700 meters high. About 12,200 feet for all my Americans out there. I’ve been trying to get better with the metric system since I’ve started traveling, seeing as I won’t be in the states for a while. I’m still having trouble making the conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius though.
To my surprise, one of the men that I met at the hostel in Twizel was also at the bus stop. His name is Dirk and he is from the Netherlands. He was to be my travel companion for the day. The ride into the national park was quite scenic actually. The lakes that are fed via the glacier water are so blue. They are almost turquoise in color. The bus rider stopped along the way and provided some commentary which was welcomed.
We arrived at the lodge in the park at about 11 o’clock but we weren’t able to check-in until 3 o’clock. So we decided to do the most popular day walk in the area, the Hooker Valley Track. It wasn’t a challenging hike at all. Maybe a 2 and a half hour round trip with no elevation gain whatsoever.
You meander along the river towards the base of the mountain, crossing some suspension bridges along the way. I am not too keen on heights to begin with, so the bridges were a bit scary to cross. They did not feel very stable to me. Especially when Dirk, who is 6′ 5″, decided it would be fun to jump up and down while we were crossing!
The views approaching the mountain were only beat by the view at the end of the trail. The glaciers feed into a small lake at the base of the mountain. We hung out there to eat lunch and chatted up a few people. Then we made a beeline back to the hostel to get settled in.
There were no grocery stores in the area and the accommodation had no kitchen. So we were forced to eat at the restaurant in the hotel. But the food was very good and fairly priced. Nothing exciting happened after dinner. I was already tired and wanted to get a good night of sleep. My plan was to hike up to the Mueller hut, which is considered the most strenuous hike in the area.