Not wishing to spend another night in sandfly hell, we zoomed out of Arthur's Pass as fast as Velma's little wheels could carry us. To break up a rather lengthy drive we stayed over at the Rangitata River Gorge in a beautiful AND cheap riverside camp. Wow! Maybe we should have ventured away from the DOC sites sooner? Anyhow, back on the road we entered into the high desert area of New Zealand. This massive basin is known as the Mackenzie Country to locals and is the primary source of eye candy delivered to international audiences in the form of blockbuster movies. If you've seen a movie filmed in NZ, you've probably seen some part of this vast, spectacular and empty landscape.
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| The view from our campsite! |
For our part, we took it upon ourselves to visit Mt Sunday, which served as the location for Edoras in the LOTR trilogy. A long and semi hazardous dirt road brought us to the middle of nowhere where Mt Sunday, which is really more of a hill than a mountain rising alone in the center of a large plain surrounded on all sides by mountains. It didn't take much imagination to picture an orc horde storming across the plains. Unfortunately nothing remains of the set built atop the mountain, but somewhere amongst the mountain backdrop is the site that was used as the backdrop to Helm's Deep which was created entirely by CG. The scenery is the real deal though, and it was fun trying to scan the mountains for where it could have been placed - all from the top of Mt Sunday of course! As an added bonus we met a woman as we were leaving who featured as an extra in the film during the exodus scene in Edoras! Awesome!
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| The top of Mt Sunday |
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| LOTR landscape |
Further along down the highway and into the heart of the Mackenzie Basin lies Lake Tekapo. Being just off the busy highway towards Queenstown, it's neon blue hue pulls tourists in for a quick stop. We decided to stay for a few days however, as we were running high on time and found a sweet lakeside campsite to hole-up in for a few hot summer days in the basin. We first made the mandatory photo stop at the uber-scenic Church of the Good Shepherd before driving up to the Mt John Observatory for the 360 degree views of the basin and its lakes. The area is one of the world's few dark sky reserves, and from the top of Mt John you can see why. For all the miles and miles you can see in every direction there is only one settlement: Tekapo with a population of 303. The only other time I'd been in a dark sky reserve it had been a cloudy starless night, so I was pretty stoked for nightfall. Can you guess what happened next? Clouds. Gotta love it! (Don't worry, I finally did get my clear night the 2nd day)
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| Church of the Good Shepherd - I'm sure plenty of marriages are hosted here! |
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| "Tekapo Blue" from Mt John |
After a few days spent lazing around the lakes we hit the road again, this time taking a little detour out to the Mackenzie to do some hiking in the Mt Cook/Aoraki National Park. Now I know I said Arthur's Pass was our first look at the Southern Alps of NZ, but let me tell you this - Arthur's Pass is like a pudding to Mt Cook's tiramisu. It's that much better! The namesake of the park, Mt Cook, is the highest peak in all of Australasia while Mt Sefton gloriously presides over the village center with its milky blue glacier cap shining in the sunlight. Of course, we could see none of this when we drove into the park for it was once again cloudy. Green bush clad hills rising into the clouds was our first glimpse at the epic valley.
While we waited for the sky to clear we took a hike to the Tasman Glacier which proved a good enough distraction while we waited for Mt Cook to show its pretty face. It was the first time I'd ever seen the terminus of a glacier in person so I was pretty stoked. The top of the glacier is so dirty and covered with debris you'd never know it was a glacier if it wasn't for the jagged blue edge fronting the glacial lake. A nearby plaque showed that a mere 14 years ago the lake and valley in front of us didn't exist and instead was completely covered by the glacier! Global warming sure can be a drag…Anywho the sky still hadn't cleared by the time we got back to our car so we drove back to the village and waited and waited and waited until finally around 2:30pm the sky opened up and VOILA! I've never seen mountains so magnificent (sans perhaps Yosemite Valley)! We sped to the Hooker Valley trailhead that we'd been waiting to tramp all day.
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| The Tasman Glacier and lake |
When we got the trailhead there were already paragliders floating down from who knows where making for some excellent photo opportunities in front of Mt Sefton's glacier. All the way down the trail and into the Hooker Valley the views never ceased. It was constant epic glaciated mountain vistas culminating in a spectacular view of Mt Cook over the Hooker Glacier and its lake at the end of the valley. Easily the best day hike on the South Island so far!
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| Mt Sefton |
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| Mt Cook & The Hooker Glacier |
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