Thursday May 10th Friday May 11th Cromwell
Ursula got out an hour early on Thursday for us to drive two plus hours to Cromwell. It is known for its fruit stands, wineries, and being the furthest point from the ocean as you can get on the South Island. We enjoyed the giant fruit statues overlooking rows of grape vines. The local museum was fun and gave information on its gold mining past. A dam was built near here and flooded the old downtown area. They actually dismantled the buildings and rebuilt them back away from the recently formed lake. That section is the quaint area known as Old Cromwell Town.
After the sightseeing we headed north to Aoraki Mount Cook (Aoraki is the Maori name and comes from one of their legends. Aoraki was one of the sons of the sky father and earth mother. Traveling with his brothers their waka (canoe) tipped over and became the South Island, the brothers took refuge on the canoe but the cold south wind came and turned them to stone, Aoraki was the tallest).
Cromwell-lots of fruit around here-hence the giant statue.
Cromwell
Old Cromwell Town!
Tara looks over lake Dunstan.
It is an amazing drive north.
Friday night May 11th to Sunday May 13th- Aoraki Mount Cook
Aoraki Mount Cook is a small village of 300 in the summer and around 30 people in the winter (i.e. it's really really small). You cannot live here unless you work here (you can't just come and buy land and build). It is an amazing place and world famous for its scenery which is as good as it gets. The Tasman glacier is right here and feeds a small river and lake. The water is pristine glacier water but because of all the rock flour (the rocks here are soft and easily broken up) it looks almost creamy. The mountain views are spectacular.
This is also home to the world’s southern most planetarium and the Sir Edmond Hillary Alpine Centre complete with movie, museum and statue. We were able to see five of the six movies/planetarium shows and they were very interesting and educational. Our first night here we were able to see the stars live (this is one of the best places to view the stars because of the low light contamination). The Southern Cross is easy to pick out near the Milky Way band, all the other constellations are “upside down” as they were first imagined from the northern hemisphere.
On Saturday we had one of our cooler adventures, the Glacier Explorer’s! After a short bus ride we had a fairly rough/uneven walk to the glacier jetty. There we boarded a small speed boat and zoomed around the glacier lake complete with icebergs of various sizes. We were able to touch an iceberg and the kids got to eat some. The glacier ice is seven times as dense as regular ice and since it was formed over 300 years ago it is pristine. It shone like a diamond. The weather was stunning! It does rain a lot here but the ground is like a sieve that drains it to underground rivers etc. That night the clouds rolled in over the mountains and in the middle of the night we heard what sounded like a very long, very loud rolling thunder-it was actually part of the glacier breaking off into the lake.
An iceberg on the lake.
Gabe holds up the crystal clear 300 yr old ice.
A view towards Mount Cook from the water.
Mount Cook.
We were up close and personal with the icebergs.
The Tasman Galcier.
Sunday was rainy in Aoraki-Mount Cook but we soon drove out of it as we headed back south. We had many cool stops including feeding salmon at a salmon farm, lots of cool mountain views, clay cliffs, and Arrowtown. This time they were not having the Fall Festival and we had a great time with a great meal.
The salmon were hungry!
Tara caught a big one!
Walking towards the clay cliffs.
The clay cliffs (yep, it really was all clay).
Snow capped mountains loom behind the clay cliffs.
A cool spot we stopped at along the way home.
The snow, the pristine sky and clouds were so bright, they didn't look real!
Photo by Tara!
Arrowtown (Brody in white, Gabe in green in the phone booth).
Downtown Arrowtown.
The kids played at an obstacle course, not a bad view.
