And...we're off!

G’day, g’day! I’m sitting in a little café in Mount Cook Village, and I’m being charged $1.50 for an hour of having my laptop plugged into their power source, so I will be concise today! What a crock, though! I’m not even using internet yet.

The trip is off to a super bien start. Super bien!

We left Akaroa around 11:30 AM on Thursday – pretty good, all things considered. We said all of our goodbyes, except to Steve, who was having a nap. Oh, well. I guess that’s an appropriate way to have left things with him, eh?

We headed into Christchurch and spent several hours prowling around the glorious Pac N’ Save, a Sam’s Wholesale type establishment, full of bargains. Of course, our food options are limited now that we are living out of our car. Everything we buy must be non perishable, and we’ve already learned one lesson about what happens to an innocent bar of Cadbury’s dark chocolate when trapped in a hot car on a sweltering day. RIP Chocolate Bar.

We drove ourselves about 1.5 hours southwest of Christchurch to a little spot on the Rakaia River, a gorgeous, huge river that’s supposedly full of salmon this time of year. We had a really nice (and FREE) camping spot all to ourselves pretty close to the river. Bjorn didn’t catch any fishies, unfortunately, and more unfortunately, he lost his flip flops in the river in some very quick sand. RIP flip flops.

The next morning we were off to an early start (it’s very easy to get on a sunset/sunrise bedtime schedule when you’re sleeping in a tent!), making our way the short distance to Mount Somers. We were planning to do a short, two-day trek at Mount Somers, spending one night on the trail. However, we woke that morning to very questionable weather, and upon looking at the weather forecast, it looked like bad weather was heading our way, especially for the following day. After a bit of deliberation, we decided to just do a nice day hike at Mount Somers, and if we got rained on, so be it – at least we wouldn’t have to sleep in the rain!

The day turned out to be decently nice, luckily, and the walk was great. We had to go through some crazy forests, though, that were FULL of wasps! The wasps were swarming everywhere, feeding off of the black bark of some trees. It was wild! Like something out of a horror film, Bjorn said. Luckily, neither of us were too, too afraid of wasps, and we managed to get through calmly and without getting stung.

The walk was about 2 hours up and three back down, and we rewarded ourselves with a little bath in the Woolshed Creek, which was right at the start/finish line. I don’t know what it is about bathing in a natural water source. It’s charming, though, especially on a hot day.

The car park for this particular trek was quiet and nice, right next to the creek, and there weren’t any signs that said NO CAMPING, so we decided we’d just throw the tent up there for the night. Two nights of free camping in a row! What luck!
The next morning (yesterday morning), we were off down the road to Mount Cook, about a 3.5 hour drive. We weren’t in any hurry, though, so we had some nice stops along the way, puttering around the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market in Geraldine (and buying some yummy, fresh, strawberries and blueberries – guess who had blueberry oatmeal this morning?), and having a relaxing lunch, looking out at the turquoise waters of Lake Pukaki, with Mount Cook looming under clouds in the distance.

We arrived in Mount Cook around 2 PM yesterday and were both taken with the area immediately. Mount Cook is about 3,700 meters and is truly majestic, dominating over the surrounding mountains. There are awesome blue glaciers running down the mountains – unapproachable and mesmerizing at the same time.

The “village” here consists of a few hotels and a visitor’s center; there are no supermarkets or anything like that. Our first stop was at the visitor’s center, where we bought a map of the walks in the area, and took in a little history about the various attempts to climb Cook over the years. We decided to go ahead and find the campground and get situated and do a short trek later in the afternoon. The White Horse Hill Campground is $6 per night per person, but there is something comforting about sleeping in the company of other campers (and feeling certain you’re not doing anything illegal).

We took a short, late afternoon walk out to Kea Point, where we had a great view of the top of Mount Cook and sat there for a while, just taking it all in. After our walk, we were very excited to make use of the pay shower at the public shelter in town. $1 gets you five minutes of water cleaning heaven, and we hadn’t showered since Wednesday night (and it was Saturday night). The shower was utterly disappointing. The water must have been filtered down straight from the glacier – it honestly felt like it was about that cold. I couldn’t stand directly under the shower (even though I was ferociously hot from being outside) and had to wash everything separately, barely popping one particular body part into the water at a time. After it was all over, though, I did feel MUCH better. Clean and refreshed.

We will probably stay here at Mount Cook til Tuesday. We checked the forecast yesterday, which predicted morning showers today, clearing in the afternoon, and nice weather tomorrow. As predicted, we woke to pouring rain this morning, though I must say, Bjorn’s tent is AWESOME in terms of waterproof-ness. We stayed completely dry. If the forecast continues to be right, we’ll do a 4 hour hike out to Hooker Valley this afternoon, and then tomorrow, we’re off on a two-day trek up to Mueller Hut and back.

I am having so much fun. Living out of the car is quite an experience and an exercise in organization! We don’t even have that much stuff, but it doesn’t take much to clutter up a station wagon. We’ve got little boxes for particular things – one for food, one for spices, one for cooking materials, one for clothes – but still, it seems IMPOSSIBLE to find that one little thing you’re looking for. Bjorn must have spent 10 minutes yesterday trying to find a clean pair of socks. We’ll get there, eventually. Every little thing needs to have its place, so when we need it, we can find it! Easier said than done, I know, especially for two people who are, well, slightly prone to make messes.
Okay, must go now! I spewed all that out in 37 minutes! Not too shabby! And now I have to go spend another $2 to get 15 minutes of internet time so I can post this. The things I do for this blog, Suzanne.

Love to you all. Will be back in a few days to report on the Mueller Hut adventure!