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Kurow Holiday Park, Kurow, South Island, New Zealand 5325km

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Yiddish Word of the day – Shpatziren – To travel. That’s what my grandparents and parents did before they learned to speak Hebrew.

We spent the last 2 days in the Southern Alps, enjoying the views and the sunny warm weather. Yesterday we woke up to a damp and gray morning in Fairlie, but as we drove eastward the sky cleared up until we saw only blue. We stopped at Lake Tekapo for a breather and tasted the first glimpse of turquoise glacial water. At the second stop in Lake Pukaki, we stopped for lunch. The long and narrow lake is the terminus of some of the glaciers starting at Mt Cook and we could see the snow capped peak clearly from our vantage point.

We drove north along the lake, towards the mountains, taking in delightful alpine and glacial views. We stopped 25km before the mountain in order to check in to our holiday park, but due to a reservation error, discovered that there was no room available for my parents. This misfortune turned out to be the best thing that happened to us. We drove straight to Mt Cook and checked into 2 rooms at the Hermitage Hotel, one of the most famous hotels in New Zealand, with excellent views of Mt Cook from each room.

After settling in the room and schlepping stuff from the RV, we set out on a hike to Kea Point. The 2 hour walk took us almost 4, Shir and Orr walked some of the way. It was a very beautiful and rather easy trail leading to a great viewpoint of Mt Cook and the Tasman Glacier. I was happy to see my folks excited at the great vista as well as the grandchildren.

The evening was a bit messy, and the kids had a hard time going to sleep, falling into dreamland way past 10pm. I hope this won’t continue, they are wearing us down like this.

I woke up at 4:45am today and with Dad embarked on a fast paced hike to Sealy Tarns. We started walking at 5am, just as the first dawn lights started to appear over the Hooker valley. We climbed up a steep path, with dad (67) leading the way and setting a killer pace that had me in awe and panting.

On the way up we had an encounter with a few kea birds, which seemed unfazed by our presence. We got closer and closer for photos and they did not budge. The more we climbed the better the views, including of Kea point, where the whole family visited yesterday. We reached Sealy Tarns just as the sun made its appearance over the mountains and painted the snowy ridge in a vibrant orange. The tarn is just an alpine pool, but the early morning light and still air turned it into a massive mirror reflecting the mountain range. Beautiful. We then had breakfast and enjoyed the stillness of the morning for half an hour before returning to the hotel, greeting all the lazy folk just getting up.

After checking out, we drove on a gravel road to Tasman Glacier for a quick hike to Blue Lakes and Tasman Glacier viewpoint. No Stroller, due to the many steps. Orr was edgy and cried most of the time. Shir walked most of the way, maintaining her right to walk unaided by adults, even when she fell. She is so stubborn about not giving a hand when she walks.

We had a quick lunch in the parking lot, and then started a long drive south towards the coast again. We drove along Lake Pukaki once again, south through a town called Twizel and then Omarama. We stopped at a salmon farm, where the kids enjoyed tossing food pellets to jumping fish, and I purchased a filet and some smoked salmon as well. We continued driving for a few more hours, passing by some beautiful lakes along the way. Most of the scenery though was yellow, as if the rain does not get here as much as the coast. We passed Otematata and finally reached Kurow where we are staying at a mediocre campground. The salmon filet was heavenly though.

Good night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 4:25 am and is filed under Big Trip, New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.