Aoraki/Mount Cook Village

If you plan to explore the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, do get to the visitor centre of the Department of Conservation (DOC) at Mount Cook Village. It would be wise to get necessary information and advice before venturing out into this vast terrain, especially if you plan to do it without any experienced guides.

Mount Cook Village is pretty small. There are just a couple of buildings around and that’s basically all there is about the village. If you want to be right into the national park and to be be as close to the mountains as possible, then you are at the right place.

You may wish to consider Glentanner Park which is about 15-20 minutes drive away. You would have passed it on the journey to Mount Cook Village. Glentanner Park offers a camping ground with cabins, power and non-power sites and restaurant facilities. It is also where the helicopters and planes take off for the scenic flights.

Alternatively, stay at Twizel or Tekapo but do know that the journey is about an hour plus for the one-way drive to Mount Cook Village.

In Mount Cook Village, there is limited accommodation but you can find the luxurious Hermitage hotel to the simple frills YHA Hostel. Whatever your choice of accommodation, you get magnificent 5-star views the moment you step out of the door!

The Hermitage surrounded by the majestic mountain range:

(Click above for larger photo)
The Hermitage
Mount Cook Village, Aug 2006

Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park

About 99km west of Tekapo lies Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. A United Nations World Heritage site, it spans over 70,000 hectares of breathtaking alpine scenery and contains 140 peaks over 2,000m high as well as 72 glaciers! It is home to Australasia’s highest mountain Aoraki/Mt Cook at 3,754m and the longest glacier in the Southern hemisphere, Tasman glacier at 29km.

It is an area of spectacular mountainscapes, tussock grassland, huge river valleys, endless high country and stunning turquoise blue lakes. In below photo, the distant peak below the noon sun is Aoraki/Mt Cook !

(click for larger photo)
Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, Aug 2006
Seeing the immense size of these mountains all around me, I am humbled and reminded of my human fragility and insignificance. One word sums up my feelings: Awesome !

Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park will be a key highlight of your vacation in New Zealand. Some things in life are worth seeing and experiencing for yourself and this is definitely one of those!

Lake Tekapo – The Road to Mount Cook

Traveling from Christchurch towards Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, along this route lies one of the most scenic lakes in the MacKenzie region – Lake Tekapo. A most spectacular sight the visitor will encounter is the beautiful turquoise colour of the lake. The lake is fed by waters from the glacier melt of the surrounding mountain range, the Southern Alps. It is the very fine sediments suspended in the glacial waters that give the lake its colour.

I have been at Lake Tekapo in autumn, spring and winter and each visit has been a new experience seeing various shades of colours ranging from turquoise to blue, even grey! I was fortunate to have seen the vivid turquoise colour on my first visit in autumn. Too bad, I only have the photos of the first visit on negatives and prints. Someday I will convert them into digital copies.

Below photo was taken on a winter noon day in Aug 2006. The colour is not quite turquoise but you get an idea of the vivid hue that makes the visitors go “Wow!” at Lake Tekapo.

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Turquoise colour of Lake Tekapo
Tekapo, Aug 2006
Across the lake lies the Southern Alps. In the centre of the photo, the distant mountain peak directly beneath the noon sun is Aoraki, Mount Cook!