Mt. Cook (for Jan. 26)

I have to amplify what Celeste said about Baldwin St. We did drive to the top. I walked half way down (the steepest part) to take some pictures and back up again. The Calgary couple was walking the whole thing.

By the time we were done blogging and touring and had lunch, it was nearly noon. We drove near the coast through low hills and plains full of – guess what? – sheep and cattle. We stopped at the Moeraki Boulders for a look. These are almost perfectly round boulders that eroded from the banks behind them. For a bunch of round rocks, they were actually kind of interesting. They had developed a kind of turtle shell exterior and, the ones that had split open exposed very colourful and varied interiors.

Next stop was the town of Oamaru. One attraction was a penguin colony, but they only come ashore a half hour after dusk and we were there at 1:30 in the afternoon, so we moved on. The other attraction was “the best-preserved collection of historic commercial buildings in NZ.” Practically the whole town was made up of these classic buildings. There were so many that I didn’t know where to start or finish, so I didn’t take any pictures.

From there, we turned inland toward Mt. Cook. The wide plain narrowed as we climbed into mountains that again reminded me of Kamloops. At the top of that valley the terrain opened into a wide plain surrounded by low mountains. We stopped at Maori rock art site. Many of the paintings had been removed to museums many years ago, but there were still a few left. Unfortunately, much of the site had been ruined by vandalism and graffiti. Very interesting limestone rock formation though.

We booked in to a motel in Twizel around 4, then carried on to Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain, taking many pictures on the way and while we were there. It is interesting to note that 2.5 days and 1,000 km after leaving the town of Fox Glacier, we were then only 30 km south of there.

We got back to the motel around 6:30, ate, and went for a walk. What a neat town, in a boring, small town kind of way. It was constructed in the 1968 to house construction workers for a huge, multi-year hydro development. When the project was done, the population shrank to those needed in the ongoing operation and those in the Mt. Cook tourism industry. The whole town is centred on a market area with restaurants and stores. Just a stone’s throw from town is a young kid’s paradise. The small river (in summer, anyway) lined with willow trees has an old swimming hole right out of a story book, complete with rope swing. There were at least a dozen kids in the main spot, with others nearby, and we ran into some others on their way. What an idyllic setting. Every other kid in town must have been at the market square, where there was a playground and other attractions for older kids.