11/14: Just beyond Lake Pukaki we entered into Mt. Cook National Park.
It was a cloudy day but you could get glimpses of the dramatic mountains covered in snow. There are 23 peaks over 3000 meters in this mountain range.
Not visible is Mt. Cook (which would be higher than the mountain seen in the above photo). Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand at 12,218 ft helped Sir Edmund Hillary to develop his climbing skills in preparation for the conquest of Mt Everest. Sir Edmund Hillary made his 1st ascent of Mt. Cook in 1948. There is a statue of Hillary at the Mt. Cook National Park lodge (though I didn't get a photo of that). :-/
Once inside the National Park Bob & I took a short hike to Tasman Lake. We have never seen a glacier lake before & we were amazed!
The lake is filled with small and LARGE chunks of ice that have broken away from the Tasman Glacier.
It was so cool (literally cool too)!
On the far side of the lake is the Tasman Glacier. It's really hard to see in this pic so click on above photo to enlarge (but it may still be hard to see). There are dark dirt streaks on the front side of the glacier at the water's edge.
Ice Ice Baby! :-)
One of the boat drivers grabbed me a chuck of ice.
Yep...it was really cold to hold. LOL.
Wish we could have taken a glacier boat ride but the tours were full for the day. 
That just looks Brrrr! No swimming for us.
We'd love to explore more trails in Mt. Cook National Park. Maybe we'll be back someday.
Mt. Cook National Park = 2 cold thumbs up!
We saw glaciers in Alaska, and I held a piece of the ice, and yes it was colder than anything I had touched before...another beautiful day in New Zealand!
ReplyDeleteAlaska is still on our bucket list. I bet your trip there was awesome! It was neat for us to see Tasman Glacier Lake.
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