Adventures of NaDave: NaDave Aussie: NZ 3 & 4 (April 1-8)

Fri April 3 (Mt Cook/Hooker Valley Hike)

We awoke to an amazing sunrise!...but also to a bent tent pole (ut oh). We surveyed the damage, but had to quickly pack up to keep on schedule. As we drove towards Mt Cook, the farmland landscape gave way to rolling hills, and the sun-kissed snowcapped peaks began to get bigger and bigger!

We arrived to our hike around 10am, and it was a clear blue day! Perfect weather for Nadine to see her first glacier! We set out on a 4 hour hike, and it was fantastic...glacial runoff lakes, swingbridges over rushing rivers, green lush valleys, and all the while looking up at snow-topped peaks. When we got the end of the hike (Hooker Lake), the glacier was about 1 mile away. We pulled out the binoculars, and looked all around the valley. The neatest thing was watching the clouds creep over the ridge line, trying to fill the valley.

It was then time to head back on the same trail. We got back to the car, and then drove over to a shorter hike to see the Tasman Glacier & Lake. We got to Tasman Lake to see a small group of floating icebergs (and hear Nadine say "Iceberg, Straight Ahead!") The Tasman glacier had also melted back pretty far up the valley, so it appeared small in our camera lenses. But there were also boats on this lake doing tours around the icebergs, and they appeared even smaller! We watched a few small icebergs fall apart in the summer sun, and then got back to the car ~5pm. We had 3 hrs of driving ahead of us to Queenstown, our destination for Saturday.

We cruised past beautiful scenery and watched the sunset low on a spectacular Day 2. We got into Queenstown and setup our tent in the dark (at a freedom campground again). We popped up the tent to find that the tent pole was indeed broken. With some engineering skills, we came up with a one-night fix. However we were still nervous bc it was forecasted to rain overnight. We then drove into Qtown for some real food (fergburger), and see the small resort town at night. The burgers we had were delicious, and the scene around town was happening! But it was quickly to bed, as Day 3 had an early start as well.

Amazing sunrise!

1st swingbridge along Hooker Valley trail

Mueller Lake along Hooker Valley

Clouds creeping into Hooker Valley (Dave's favorite thing on the hike!)

Dave at the end of Hooker Lake...looking at the distant glacier

Icebergs in Tasman Lake!

Look how small the boat is!

Sat April 4 (Glenorchy/Queenstown)

We awoke to find that the tent had held!...but also that it was raining (boo). So we quickly packed up a wet tent, and headed straight to a gas station in town. We grabbed a coffee to warm up & also used their bathrooms. We then started our epicly scenic drive to Glenorchy (also near where Lord of the Rings was filmed). We drove through mixes of rain, clouds, and sun...which meant we saw some rainbows! Since we didn't have a 4-wheel drive, we could only go so far before the dirt roads appeared, so we turned back and drove back into Qtown.

We got into town, and checked out 2-3 outdoor shops to see if they had replacement tent poles. They all said no, and so we figured the hardware store was where we needed to go to fix the tent. We couldn't go another night without a fix. We saw that the store stayed open until late, so we decided to do our hike first.

We headed up to the Ben Lomond hike, via a short Gondola ride with awesome views of the city. We had plans to make it to the top of the mountain, but the weather kept us off the summit. We still had some great views, and really experienced the quickly changing alpine weather. After our 3-4 hr hike, we returned to the gondola, and watched a few crazy soles bungy jump & scream into oblivion (we have one guy screaming on video!)

It was then time to head to the store to fix the pole. After a solid hour of conversations, measuring tapes, and scouring for fixes, we crafted our solution...and it held! Although the true test would be in Manapouri, where we would setup camp for the night.

We drove for ~2 hrs through unbelievable scenery again...and arrived at a quaint place (like a camping hostel) with showers & a pub nearby. NaDavecleaned up, ate dinner & chatted with other travelers in the common area, then headed over to watch rugby in a small-town NZ pub (it was awesome!). There was also a local band, and after a few beers, even we danced a little bit.

We arrived back to our tent to find it still standing! And the moon was so bright you didn't even need a flashlight. We were super excited, as the major bookings of the trip were tomorrow...,a Doubtful Sound cruise & a Glowworm Tour!