Day 4-New Zealand "MOUNT COOK"

Today is a travel day. We will be traveling from Christchurch to Queenstown N.Z. The complete trip did take almost 12 hours and we were all getting a little tired of the bus. However the trip was very picturesque. The countryside was so beautiful and stunning. Of course me being a girl that loves mountains and water I was in heaven. As I always say "The Joy is in the Journey"

So halfway between Christchurch and Queenstown is the amazing Lake Tekapo. We learned that "Tekapo" is a Maori word that means night sleeping place. The lake is unique and famous for it's color. The color of the lake is created by "rock flour" which results when the glaciers head water grinds the rocks into fine dust. The lake never freezes and is excellent for fishing. The church you see is called the "Church of the Good Shepherd" The church was build in 1935. The Church is interdenominational and services are held regularly throughout the year.




As we traveled down the road a few more miles we could see Mount Cook. It is called "Aoraki" in the Maori language. In New Zealand Mt. Cook is the tallest of all the mountains and is #36 in the world. It is over 3000 meters. It was named after James Cook the English explorer. Most days Mt. Cook is covered by clouds. So as we were getting closer you could see the full mountain but as we reached the restaurant that we ate lunch at within minutes the clouds rolled in and covered half the mountain. Therefore this is a post card that I bought so you can see how beautiful it is.


It was time for lunch so we stopped at the Hermitage Hotel where CTMH treated us to a wonderful lunch. We had time after lunch so we took more photos and walked around before getting back on the bus.

We are at the base of Mt. Cook and you can see that the mountain is almost covered with the cloud.


On the way down the hill we stopped at Lake Pukaki which has blue glacial water that is fed by Mt. Cook. Us girls had our photo taken by our spouses. This is just the girls on my bus. The other half stopped at Lake Pukaki on the way up the mountain. It was a funny site watching all our husbands take our photo. It looked like a Paparazzi convention.




Enjoying the views of Lake Pukaki with Mt. Cook behind us buried in the clouds. So much fun and stunning nature. We then arrived in Queenstown that evening. Check back for details about Queenstown.