The "Cloud Piercer"

On Thursday morning we woke up to snow on the mountains in Queenstown!  The view from the hostel kitchen was so lovely since it looked out over the lake and had the snow-capped mountains in the background.  As we left Queenstown, headed for Mt. Cook-Aoraki, the view as we drove was lovely.  We stopped in Cromwell for a coffee break, the town is known for its fruit in summer, but since it was winter we didn't stick around.

We drove through Lindis Pass and there was still some snow on the grass at the lookout point.  Our resident Queenslanders (the tropical region of Australia) were completely enamored with the snow, they had never touched it before so it was a new experience for them.  It's not that there isn't snow in a few areas of Australia, these two had just never been there.

After lunch in Omarama we found ourselves driving alongside Lake Pukaki.  For my LOTR fan readers, the following excerpt is just a piece of an entire article about the area and the movies: "A pure distinctive light, the amazing turquoise hues of the lake and the sharp alpine landforms were all part of the attraction for the film-maker who has used this region three times to backdrop major location scenes in his 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' Trilogies."  For the rest of us, the lake is fed by the Tasman River, which is in turn fed by he Hooker and Tasman Glaciers.  It is the largest of the three glacial lakes in the area and as you can see is indeed an amazing blue-green color.

The water colour of the lake is a bright turquoise due to glacial flour, made from extremely fine rock particles that have come from the surrounding glaciers...When the sun hits the surface of the lake, it reflects off the particles transforming it to a brilliant blue." source  Since it was such a clear day we managed to get a glimpse of Mt. Cook (the Maori name, Aoraki, means "cloud piercer") before it was engulfed by clouds.  We had planned to do a three hour hike to a lookout below the mountain, which happens to be the tallest in New Zealand.  A storm was moving in and none of us had the proper clothing for a hike in rainy slush, Telli adamantly advised against it.  As he put it, "the animals of NZ don't kill you, the weather does."  No one wanted to quit before we started so we bundled up as best we could (the wind was incredibly cold) and went about 25 minutes down the trail.  We had been able to see the river, which was nearly white from all the glacial flour, before the spitting rain started.  We asked some hikers, that had come from the mountain, if there was anything up the trail further to see (i.e. "should we continue in this crazy weather?") and they advised that we wouldn't see anything because the weather was too poor.  Satisfied that we had seen what we could we turned back to the warmth of the lodge (after a group selfie).

To be honest, I didn't mind terribly that the weather had ruined our hike, what made me sad was that the weather also ruined my chances of star gazing.  "Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of only eight in the world." source  I had also been secretly hoping to get a glimpse of the Aurora Australis while here as well.  I guess it wasn't meant to be this time.