On New Year’s Eve, after we walked up the Tasman Glacier Walk, we drove around to the other side of the mountain to the carpark nearest to Mount Cook. We have walked the Hooker Valley Track two other times, and loved it each time. This time, I decided to stay in the van and let Miss Joy have a nap on the bed. Mr. Imagination and Little Miss didn’t want to walk, so they stayed, too. I let them stay—on condition that they play quietly, outside the van so they wouldn’t bother their baby sister. She fell asleep quickly, and I enjoyed getting to read and do some writing in the breeze that blew through the open windows of the van. The other two played with four toy animals that Simon had bought for the four youngest children at our friends’ shop that morning. I’m not sure what all they did with them, but they kept busy for an hour! Then, Mr. Imagination saw an avalanche on the mountain facing us, and was so excited that he forgot about being quiet. That was the end of Miss Joy’s nap! I was thankful that she’d had a good solid hour, though.
This is the mountain we were facing. See the nearly horizontal wall of snow stretching across the left side, near the top? There were several avalanches from it during the afternoon, and when we left there was a huge notch that wasn’t there when we first arrived. I think it was made by the avalanche that ended up causing Miss Joy to wake up.
After Miss Joy woke up, the three children played together on the bed for awhile with their animals, and then we decided to start walking on the trail to meet the rest of the family.
Most of the rest of the pictures are from other people’s cameras, since I didn’t go far on the trail.
This is the first (of two) swing bridges. The little ones and I went just to the other side of this one, sat on some rocks there for awhile, then came back, and about that time the first members of our family joined us.
The second swing bridge.
Do you see the shape of the lower slopes? They were gouged out by glaciers.
Mount Cook!
There were a lot of very interesting flowers.
I’m not sure which glacier this is, although my best guess would be the one at the base of the mountain in the first picture in this post. Maybe Esther will comment below; she went on the walk and knows more about the scenery than I do!
Back at the vans! There was another avalanche, which the boys were looking at. See Miss Joy on the bed?
Our last glimpse of Mount Cook for this trip.
Back at our friends’ house, Mr. Imagination found these two pine cones. He was intrigued by the size difference. The little one is about an inch and a half long.
