Mount Cook

We woke up to the sun hitting our tent straight on. It was nice to open both tent layers and let the sun shine in, while we had a view of the lake right in front of us. We didn't waste time and drove towards Mount Cook Village up north. There we visited the DOC office and asked some information about hikes and camping options. We were a bit overwhelmed by the many possibilities. The decision was made by ruling out options.

Hiking to a hut on non-marked trails without a GPS and detailed paper map - no (sorry Wilhelm)
Hiking up 1km in altitude to Mueller hut with all our gear in 27 degrees to camp there in possibly strong winds - no.
Hiking an easy but most popular trail in the area in the middle of the day - no.
Hiking up half of the 1km altitude hike to Mueller hut and turning around after a viewpoint - yes.

This made it possible to do it as a day trip when starting only after lunch. It was still very hot and the sun was strong, but we were only carrying 2 to 3 kg's thanks to our lightweight bags. And this was helpful because the trail was incredibly steep with mostly stairs. It's probably for a reason that it took us 1.5 hours to hike only 2.7km. We had a great view on top.

Back at the campsite our British neighbours (who called us crazy for hiking under this strong sunshine) gifted us a cold beer, a very welcome refreshment. We spoke a bit about how things were here 20 years ago when they used to travel and camp here.

After a shower in the town about 2 km from the campsite, we had a pretty plain lentils curry as we ran out of vegetables and found no place to buy them nearby. The plan was to go to bed early to be able to hike the Hooker Valley track (that is the most popular one) before everyone else does. This didn't work out as we suddenly saw lots of Kea birds, New Zealand's parrot. They are the only alpine parrot in the world, and they are capable of... killing and eating sheep. They also like to take apart things for fun. We witnessed several of them destroying the rubber of cars parked at the campsite.Read more