Kaikoura to Queenstown

Kaikoura to Mt Cook

This will probably be the briefest post yet as our drive from Kaikoura to Mt Cook was days ago now and was mostly just driving through always beautiful scenery. We arrived at Mt Cook National Park in the early evening with enough time to stash our stuff and head up a small hike that had nice views of the valley and Mt Cook. Mt Cook for those that don't know is NZ's tallest mountain. The mountains here are very jagged and spiky, another reminder that this country is young on the geological scale and is actively changing (as evidenced by the recent earthquakes and plethora of aftershocks in Christchurch). Apparently it takes about 6 days to climb Mt Cook (5 days to wait for good weather and 1 crazy 16 hour day). Needless to say that was not on our list of things to do on this trip so we just admired the snow and cloud capped peak from afar.

Mt Cook to Queenstown

Our drive to Queenstown was peppered with various stops for lunch and other little side trips. Of course a couple of these stops were at wineries, what else?! We were lucky enough to be able to stay with relatives of friends just outside of Arrowtown the night before and after our Milford hike so we didn't have to worry about our stuff and car while we were away. Jef and Robina were wonderful hosts with a spectacular home on the top of a hill surrounded by lots of land. They didn't name it Skyview for nothing! They were so helpful, giving us a lift into town on the first day of our hike and dropping our car off at the airport on our last day. The bottle of wine we gave them was not thanks enough!
The night before our hike (or walk as they say in apparently every other part of the world) started there was an orientation meeting so that the tour (Ultimate Hikes) could give us a brief rundown of the Milford Track, a nice laminated waterproof map, answer any questions we might have, as well as allow us to borrow a raincoat, backpack and buy any other gear we may need.

Just realized that I should have been calling the blog posts various titles takes on chapters from LOTR, the whole NZ trip could be called: The Honeymoon Or There And Back Again