Following Joyce & Paul's Travels in Retirement

Mt. Cook at over 12000’ elevation.

Saturday morning it was a bit cloudy and dull when started heading east.

However, the sun soon came out and we had blue skies and low 20s. We saw a couple of waterfalls from the road as well as some beautiful blue lakes.

It was a short drive for the day, about 3 1/2 hours plus stopping time, so we got to our motel in early afternoon. At check in, we talked with the lady there about what to do for the afternoon. She suggested a drive to see Mt. Cook, just over an hour away. She said if we had good visibility of the mountain when we stopped at a viewpoint half way there, we should definitely go the rest of the way. She said it was good road, fairly straight and it wouldn’t be dark before 9 pm or later.

So after a quick grocery run, off we went. It was an excellent viewing. We still had clear skies and fair temps.

Such beautiful colours – it is another glacial lake and reminded us of some we’ve seen in Alberta.

Now we were closer and there was no longer any lake visible.

After a snack at the cafe in the village, we headed back to our motel for the night. Tomorrow we’ll reach the east coast again.

Friday morning we had some sun as we left Greymouth and headed south. Today’s notes included two glaciers along the way.

We had some grasslands at the base of the mountains.

We got our first glimpse of the Franz Joseph Glacier and decided to drive in on a secondary road to a parking area for better visibility. We took a hike in for better views – about a 30 minute round trip.