We went back up and over the Lindis Pass, back through Omarama and on through Twizel.  Just outside of Twizel, we hit the spectacular view of Lake Pukaki.  Then it was down and through the trees, the big stands of pine that stood on each side of the road, until they finally opened up to majesty of Lake Pukaki again, with the giant of a mountain called Mount Cook standing in the background.

I’d been told that you can’t miss Mount Cook, when you saw it, you would know.  How true that statement was - for Mount Cook towers over the surrounding peaks.  We made our way on the very nice road - looking out on the lake and the seemingly endless number of rivers and streams that trickled into the lake from the surrounding mountain ranges.  They trickled into the lake now, winter time, but from the look of the rock strewn river bed, it is pretty clear that once the snow melt starts in spring, those little streams turn into mighty and violent rivers.

With each passing mile, the vastness of Mount Cook continued to impress, rising more and more from the surrounding mountains….it was truly a mountain among, well, mountains.

Lake Pukaki, in winter now - didn’t have the snow melt, and the approach to Mount Cook was a green rocky field, complete with cattle and sheep working their way through the rivulets and ponds.

We pulled into the lodge and visitor center, right under the shadow of the mountain, first to, ahem, relieve ourselves of some excess fluid, but also to see the Alpine Visitor Center and Museum, which partly told the story of Mount Cook and its history, but was dedicated to one of the most famous Kiwis, the first to conquer Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary.

Hillary, a native New Zealander, spent much of his youth climbing the peaks of the South Island.  The most impressive, and most formidable, was his assent of Mount Cook, one of his practice runs for Mount Everest.

Hillary, in addition to being a mountain climber, was also a humanitarian who gave time, money, and resources to helping those less fortunately, specifically the Sherpa people - those sturdy guides that help with the assent up Mount Everest.  Hillary and his family helped to build schools and hospitals so that they might enjoy some of the comforts of modern society.

The museum also had a 3-D theater that showed movies every half an hour.  Since we were playing the tourists, we had to take our turn.  So instead of the dinosaurs, we chose, wisely, the movie about Mount Cook.

The issue was, we had to wait an hour for it to start.

Impressive Mount Cook

Impressive Mount Cook.  Closer.

Author and Sir Edmund Hillary (statue…Sir Edmund Hillary)

One of the workhorses of the mountain, a Massey….wonder if they had to split it every fortnight like the one we used to have on the farm….