Oamaru, Lakes Tekapo & Pukaki, and Mt Cook (Days 23-24)

After a quick morning walk to check if the little penguins were still there (vanished without a trace), we spent an hour or so walking around Oamaru's Victorian-preserved part of town.  It was interesting to see all the old buildings from the 1800's still in use.  Some of the businesses even thrive on the Victorian-era theme, offering services like good old-fashioned book-binding.  It was very interesting to walk into all the antique and artisan shops, and I spent a good while looking at some of the old books.  We stopped in Deja Moo, a delicious ice-cream parlour where we some unique ice cream flavours.  We walked around a little more with our cones and saw some steampunk art sculptures and themed playground as we made our way back to the car. 

Finally, after many changes in itinerary, we were headed to Mt Cook.  On the way we encountered two spectacular lakes, Tekapo and Pukaki.  The views of the mountains and the magical blue of Tekapo were incredible, but when J turned a corner and Lake Pukaki came into sight for the first time, I couldn't help but cry out in wonder.  We had read a blog prior to coming here about a guy who said the first time he saw Lake Pukaki, he screamed like a little girl, and I suddenly understood why.  The view is beyond describing.  Large grey and snow-capped mountains are suddenly right there in front of you, bordering the spectacularly turquoise-coloured waters and reflected off the water like a mirror.

We had seen many mountains and many lakes on this trip, and many of them together, but absolutely nothing rivals the impossible beauty of Lake Pukaki.  Yes, the water really is that colour in real life.  But pictures don't do it justice.  The immensity of the mountains, RIGHT THERE, is not an experience I can describe to you in words nor show you in pictures.  You just have to be there.
To highlight how impossible it is to find words to describe it, I'll share a quote from J: "It's the bluest blue of the blues!"

J was on cloud 9 with giddiness and visibly bouncing with happiness whenever we were in sight of this lake.  We drove north along the eastern side of it for a bit, first going to a lookout point and then, to chose what may be my favourite campsite of the entire trip.

An entire shoreline of incredibly large and private areas directly on Lake Pukaki was there for us to chose from.  After a bit of driving up and down, we finally chose our favourite spot, and pulled in for the night.

We got out our camp chairs and set them up by the shore of the lake to watch the sunset, which was quite obviously spectactular.  After the magical colours faded, I lingered in my seat, staring at the fading colours, the looming mountains, and the impossibly-turquoise water.  Being in the presence of so much natural beauty made me feel suddenly and overwhelmingly small.  My thoughts turned deeply inward, and I started thinking about everything in my life that had led me to that moment.

What led me here was nothing different than what leads anyone anywhere in life: a winding, unsure path of wrong turns, self-discovery, various griefs and joys, broken and rebuilt identities, loneliness, mistakes, happy accidents, incredible friendships, loss, misunderstandings, empowering decisions, and so much joyous and terrifying risk-taking.  It's easy for me to get lost in this kind of thought, but I pulled my eyes away from the sky and the mountains and looked over at J sitting next to me, and we both decided to finally head "home" for the night, to our cozy little sleepervan.

The next morning brought new beauty and surprises.  As J put it, "It's not every morning that you wake up to pink mountains, turquoise waters... and a man with a pony."

Indeed.  As I pulled back the curtains and saw the sunrise had turned the mountains a gloriously bright pink, I gasped and woke up J to make her look out the window.  "Pink mountains!" I exclaimed.  "Oh, and... a pony?!"  J sat partway up.  "There's a man with it, too!"

Sure enough, there was.  The straw-hatted lounging man and his pony appeared to be enjoying a quiet morning watching the sunrise, and after the colourful display was over, he and his pony were on their way, again leaving us to our solitude by the lake and mountains.













The weather was rainy, but we didn't mind at all because it meant we got to eat breakfast not only with majestic mountains by a turquoise lake, but with an added rainbow that lingered all morning while we ate.

Eventually we set off down and around Lake Pukaki to take the road up north on its western side towards Mt. Cook National Park.  On the way we made a quick stop at Mt Cook Alpine Salmon, a tiny salmon sashimi booth that sells nothing but that.  J bought a 100 gram package of the most delicious salmon sashimi I've ever had, and I'm not even a sushi person.  The freshness of the salmon was an incredible dance of flavour that, if you are ever in the area, should not be missed.

It was even rainier and colder in the shadow of the barely-visible Mt. Cook, but that never stops us.  We just put on more layers, armed ourselves with our bright red rain ponchos, and off we went on a 40 minute hike to the Tasman Glacier.

The trail is currently under construction, meaning we had to navigate slippery half-finished wooden planks that would eventually be stairs, sliding mud and rocks, and extremely spiky green plants on a haphazardly-indicated makeshift path that zigzagged up to the view at the top.  There was no real good way to get to the top - as J put it, "Pick your poison".  Nothing deters us from our hiking goals, however, so we trekked it up to the top as best we could, admiring the Tasman Valley views behind us, the magestic snow-covered mountains completely surrounding us, and the strange vegetation and plants all around us.

J got to the top a minute or two ahead of me, as usual, and called down to me "Don't cry!"  When I joined her at the top, I saw why.  "Where's the glacier?!"  I exclaimed, The glacier was nowhere to be seen, and there was a plaque that identically echoed my cry, with the heading "Where's the glacier?"
While the glacier is indeed technically there, at only 24km long (in 2011) it was barely visible through the mist, and is shrinking rapidly at 480-820m per year.  I didn't cry, but I was close to it.  It's a very unique kind of sadness, to be face to face with something that is immensely disturbing and completely out of your power to stop.  We both looked down in utter silence at the rapidly growing lake of melted glacier, and the small floating bits of iceberg that will soon join the meltwater.
We have seen so much incredible natural beauty in New Zealand, and have learned so much from signs, guides, and pamphlets about the various conservation efforts all over the country to preserve this beauty and the fragile plant life and creatures that live in it, and the successes they have had.  It's very difficult to come face to face with something that small localized efforts cannot possibly stop: the warming of the planet.  It was a sobering reminder of how fragile our entire existence on this planet really is.

Melted Tasman Glacier...

That evening, we rewarded ourselves after our cold and rainy hike with a rare treat: dinner in an actual restaurant instead of cooked in the cold at the back of our sleepervan.  Mt. Cook National Park has a small village in it with a few restaurants. As we pulled up to Old Mountaineer's Cafe, we realized that we hadn't been in civilization in a while, and quickly tried to brush our hair, put on perfume and change our muddy pants in order to appear presentable enough for eating out!

We enjoyed a delicious ginger-pumpkin soup, salmon pizza, and chocolate cake with ice cream with beautiful views of the mountains from the large glass windows, before heading back to our van to sleep in the shadow of Mt Cook and the other majestic mountains to the soothing sound of the rain outside.