Activity Summary
Tuesday 17th January - Day 138
Drive to Mt Cook / Aoraki National Park
Lake Pukaki
Tasman Glacier & lake track
Mt Cook museum & information centre
Wednesday 18th January - Day 139
Luke: Mt Ollivier via Mueller hut hike
Nicola: Mueller hut hike
Stargazing
Thursday 19th January - Day 140
Tasman glacier heli hike & Mt Cook fly by
Hooker valley track hike
Summary
Mt Cook / Aoraki national park
Absolutely unreal place. Luke’s favourite place ever and has continued to drive his ambition to take up hiking / mountaineering when home.
The hiking was immense. The views were immense. The variety of natural wonders was spectacular. The heli hike was actually insane.
Loved it.
Accommodation
Glentanner - Glentanner Park Centre
Number of nights - 3
Price per night per person - £15
We effectively had a choice between two places. The DOC site up near the Hooker Valley track was super basic with no showers and a drop toilet with plenty of sandflies to keep us company. The place we opted for was a fair drive away but it had a comfortable kitchen, chill area and hot showers so post walking it was perfect. There were limited sandflies and tent pitching was easier given that we were a bit further away from hardcore mountain ranges / dried lake beds.
Diary
We set off in the morning to Mt Cook with the sun still shining over the gloriously blue lake of Tekapo and with continued back problems sporadically turning up over constant airbed abuse, Nicola took this opportunity as Luke was flapping around to do some morning yogi with a very nice view. In turn, everyone there got a great view (despite her trying to be low key).
The first stop off along the way was Lake Pukaki, a similar lake to Tekapo in that it was glacial fed and all the settled fine particles from this run-off created the wonderful blue beauty. It was a little busy and not overly peaceful but gave us our first glimpses of Mt Cook, which in turn made Luke jizz his pants.
What a lovely drive over to the national park. We stopped off at various points to take in and appreciate the Southern alps at its highest, each stop getting better and better and was just progressively turning Luke into a screaming 1D fangirl.
We had a pretty packed itinerary while here with a lot to do and limited wiggle room. Our first easy activity was to drive to the Tasman Glacier track which was easily accessible with all our gear in the car and it was only a short walk up the glacier & glacier lake viewpoint.
We parked up and completed the short loop to the glacier viewpoint and along the glacier lake back around to the car park. The first stop on the track is the Blue Lakes, aptly called this because it was once blue like the glacial lakes but is now horribly green from algae now cut off from the beautiful minerality of the retreated glacier.
Luke’s first experience seeing a glacier firsthand and it was pretty immense. Slightly confusing to look at, as the top layer was a fine rock covering the pure ice so once Luke was educated in the ways of glaciers (always learning this guy) he could then use his terrible eyes to marvel at the wonder. We just sat there for a while peacefully watching and appreciating.
The loop round followed the glacier lake, formed simply because the glaciers are all melting away into nothing so we are pretty lucky to be seeing this all as if we were to do this trip when retired it’s doubtful they will exist. This did however lead to some epic views of icebergs that had broken off and drifted down towards the start of the river down the mountains. Luke actually said out loud ‘o sheeeeet’ when turning round the corner.
Once back at the car we made some lunch in the hut at the start of the track, actively avoiding the horrifically ill tourists coughing up their guts in the other half of the building.
We were pretty close to Mt Cook village and wanted to stop by the DOC info centre to get some details on the Mueller hut hike we were planning the next day so stopped by here which turned into quite a long stay. The DOC centre was a museum paying homage to Mt Cook and the national parks history which was absolutely fascinating to look through the timeline of people climbing the behemoth. Of note was the book detailing who had died in and around the national park dating back to the first attempted climbs.
Now fairly late in the afternoon we drove back on ourselves to Glentanner and the much nicer campsite on offer here than the basic DOC site in Mt Cook village. Great decision to stay here; there were minimal sandflies (tons at the DOC site), the tent pitch was ok and the facilities were decent for such a remote place. Mainly there was a very good space to chill and relax after a hard day's walking with great views looking over Mt Cook in the distance. It was very difficult to get Nicola’s Bane (the new name of the tent - will shorten it to Bane going forward) up as it was so windy and he’s a big boy once erect so it took us a few attempts, plenty of flapping around and Luke painstakingly hammering pegs into rock to get set up. It would however have been no different anywhere else.
We cooked up some power pasta for the next day's hikes, dinner for the eve and after chilling for a bit crashed out.
As we are at a fantastic new hiking area and its day 139 of Luke getting fit for fun, it was another more ambitious hike than we would have thought to attempt planned for the day.
We planned to do the Mueller hut hike which has the status of being one of the best hikes in New Zealand. The track is very well maintained for the start and pretty well done for the remainder having big orange poles that navigate through the rocks, small patches of ice and over to the hut. Distance wise it was longer than avalanche peak with the same gain and came with none of the difficulty warnings so it seemed it should be fairly straight forward. The plan was for us to go our separate ways and tackle the track at our own speeds.
Luke however then learned that he could summit Mt Ollivier by adding a little on to the route. We stopped by the DOC in the morning to check in which we totally didn’t need to do on a day hike (misread the website) and the guy gave Luke the confidence that it was fairly straight forward to the summit although the track is unmarked. He is very new at this and doing it by himself he had been very cautious / slightly nervy in pushing himself.
We started the walk together but separated pretty early on to allow Nicola to walk comfortably at her pace without feeling the pressure to go quicker to accommodate Luke.
Luke story time:
I quite like walking on my own. The route up was pretty steep but pretty straight forward to begin with, simply walking up steps built into the mountain side. Past these and the Sealy Tarns viewpoint the walk gets a lot more interesting in trying to navigate across rocks.
The views the whole way up were immense. Looking back there was the Tasman glacier & lake, Mt Cook and other immense mountain ranges.
However once scaling to the saddle the views of the snow & ice covered mountain ranges in front were spectacular. Every now and again you could hear some sort of ice avalanche kicking off in the distance with an almighty roar and crack. I did manage to get the tail end of a smaller one on video. Basically the views were absolutely breathtaking.
The route from the saddle to Mueller hut was pretty good fun. This was my first experience of hiking in summer to then be greeted by ice patches. I was so unsure about it that I ended up waiting for others on the opposite side to walk across to me before I knew that was what I was meant to do. Mans is so green.
The views continued to be cracking from the short walk from the saddle to the hut. I stopped for some power pasta here and got chatting to a few others who were also going to walk up to Mt Ollivier’s summit, so I was happy that if I had a problem someone would likely see me. Reassuring.
Mt Ollivier summit was also quite a straightforward walk but a lot more ‘I’ve gone wrong here’ and some proper scrambling / climbing. A number of cairns (stacked rocks) helped to guide through a sensible route but this was sometimes a bit sketch. Tactic was to basically avoid the sheer cliff drop on my left.
I was very happy to be successful, although the weather was pretty good for it. From the summit the views over the whole of the valley were cracking and as some others also summited it meant I could get a picture not solely reliant on the selfie stick.
The way down was pretty uneventful and we were reunited at the Sealy Tarns viewpoint.
Luke's story ends.
Nicola had been a champion and powered on up to the Mueller Hut also, achieving a feat which she thought she wouldn’t be able to do. Again, it’s all Luke’s fault for making her rush. Nicola also made friends with an Austrian woman of a similar age so had company during her hike and we both hiked at a similar pace.
Once both at Sealy we had some food, caught up and descended down the steps together.
Great walk. Final Strava stats:
12.4km
/\ 1,196m
Highest point = 1,196m
Walking time = 4hrs 12mins
Total time = 6hrs 21mins
Once back at the campsite we were pretty pooped and tried to call it an early night. Nicola was wrapped up in the tent with her standard noise cancelling headphones on but as Luke tried to get some shut eye he kept hearing a faint shouting in the wind of ‘help, help’. Thinking he was hearing things, he completely ignored it for a few minutes but it wouldn’t let up. So he did what every good citizen does and went looking for this random dude. Turns out there was someone calling out for help right in the middle of some thick bush down towards the lake. By the time Luke had gotten to the bush line he had noticed a couple with a powerful flashlight were much closer and seemed to be on top of it. So after waiting for 10 minutes for the whole situation to resolve it did, the cry for help stopped and he went back to the tent having achieved absolutely no heroics. But he was very happy about this and could go to bed without remorse for leaving a stranded kid.
With all this excitement and the adrenaline from the days walking, we both couldn’t sleep so when Nicola went for her standard midnight wee she decided to see whether Luke was awake. The stars were absolutely immense - the weather was perfect and because we were so remote with absolutely no lights anywhere (Tekapo is a very built up area by comparison) the milky way and thousands of stars were clear as day. Even the iPhone photos turned out alright.
The day before would take some beating but if any day would do it in NZ, this would be the one.
Luke had poured over a lot of information online about heli-hiking on one of the glaciers of which the most popular are the Tasman (Mt Cook), the Fox Glacier & the Franz-Joseph Glacier. The latter two were apparently the more popular, likely because of ease of access down the West coast whereas the journey to Mt Cook is a long drive for those on a tight timeline.
We decided to do the Tasman for the following reasons:
Luke loves Mt Cook
The time on the ice is all the same - it doesn’t really matter which one is chosen
The Tasman glacier (at this time) was the largest glacier in NZ
The heli ride from Mt Cook airport to the glacier is longer than the other glaciers - more fly time = more fun
The fly by of Mt Cook on the way back across the faces that can’t be seen on any day hikes was too appealing
It was more expensive but if paying that much money for it, what's another £50
We had an early afternoon tour which gave us the morning to nurse any developing DOMS from the walk before. We had decided to treat ourselves to a fry up from the cafe in our campsite but the menu sucked balls so we had to scrap that (bloody COVID). Granola and a banana it was.
We drove over to the meet spot at Mt Cook airport and met up with the tour company. We went with Alpine Guides and we were very happy with them. Would def recommend them.
The tour group however were potentially the most boring group we could have asked for. Nicola got on well with a lone American traveller who was very nice, even took some photos of us. Everyone else looked like they’d never prepared for a proper hike before, let alone one on ice and didn’t get excited or say a word to the guides or really each other.
The helicopter groups were split in two with us going in the latter one. This would mean more time on the ice doing cool shit come the end however so it was definitely the better option.
The flight over was pretty cool. The braided river up through the valley and over to the glacier was beautiful. Good start. We both have been treated to helicopter fights courtesy of Tom Maclean before so that part wasn’t new for us.
Once on the ice the temperature had plummeted. We were told that we would likely be very warm from the guides at the airport but boy they were wrong. The wind had started picking up and on their advice, Luke was packing much lighter than he usually would as they had provided us with teeny tiny bags so it was just his T-shirt and raincoat to keep him warm. It didn’t do a very good job. Fortunately Nicola was far more wrapped up but was missing some additional layers.
Our ice guide was an incredibly excitable Canadian who thankfully did a pretty good job of making up for the massively dry group he just got handed. What he did have however was an incredibly attentive student in Nicola Swain who spent the entire trip basically getting a one-one guide, history and geography lesson. Both of them loved it and the rest of the group could care less / barely keep up.
The first activity on the ice was putting on the crampons. First time for both of us and pretty easy to use. Naturally plenty of the group sucked at putting these together.
Once kitted out we spent the next 2 hours walking around the glacier, finding caverns and walking through and on some seriously cool shit.
Meanwhile in the background, the true summit of Mt Cook (cannot be seen from the walking tracks / other side of the mountain) glared at us with his friends.
The whole experience was incredible, and once the first group were airlifted back to the airport we got to walk around some more and play with ice screws.
For our heli ride back, our guide also jumped in as well given he was done for the day. Then the best part of Luke’s trip occurred.
Nige, who we were told was the best pilot to have and we were incredibly lucky to have at the start of the trip, did the most incredible fly by of Mt Cook and the closest mountains & glaciers standing at 3,000m in the air. It was utterly breathtaking and with the running commentary from the guide it was all just spectacular. Coming over the first ridge to reveal the mass glaciers chilling thousands of metres in the air was stunning.
To finish it all off we flew by the wonderful braided river that flows into Lake Pukaki.
Best activity of the trip. For Luke, ever.
Once back at the airport Nicola continued her 1-1 lesson with our guide with Luke third wheeling in the background.
It was about 4/5pm by the time we were done but given this was the only chance we would have to do the Hooker Valley track (as we didn’t fancy it in the morning of checking out) we drove over to Mt Cook village for 5pm, scoffed some food on the way and starting hiking.
We rushed through the track as quickly as our tired selves could carry us. The track itself is very well looked after and is an easy walk so we were at the Hooker Valley glacier fairly quickly. After a few photos and a quick rest we turned tail and back to the car. By the time we reached it we were very done and looking forward to food and bed.
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