|
We slept until 7:40 a.m. and then got up. We got our first daylight glimpse of where we actually were, a gorgeous view of the mountains. Stan made pancakes for breakfast. We ate with Tash and Dagmar (who were just back from their early morning kea bird research). Craig tried his pancakes the Kiwi way, with lemon and brown sugar.
We cleaned up and headed out of the hut at around 10:30. We hiked the Hooker Valley Track. It was a well-maintained gravelly track that spanned several swing bridges and boardwalks. On the tramp, we got a great view of the valley, tarns, and mountains. Mt. Cook wasn't completely visible because of the gorgeous clouds, which were shifting patterns rapidly in the wind. Only occasionally could we see the summit. The weather was warm with occasional wind. There wasn't too much altitude change on this hike, so it was a nice relaxing one. We reached the lake fed by Hooker Glacier at 12:30. The lake had a bunch of mini icebergs floating in it, and the wind was whipping along its surface causing whitecaps. The lake and the river it feeds were a very interesting pale aqua blue (it bordered on gray). There were a lot of people on the lakeshore, and we climbed up a little ways to get some privacy and a better view. We sat on some rocks and made flavored tuna sandwiches (Thai chilli tuna and lemon pepper tuna) with tomatoes, cucumbers, and cheddar. During lunch the wind picked up and we needed to add two more layers of clothing. I needed to put a rock on my sandwich while I got dressed so that the sandwich wouldn't blow away! Craig took his wind pants out of his pack and they immediately filled with wind and stood straight out like a windsock. It was so funny! The three of us hunkered down behind a boulder to cut down on the wind and ate some chocolate. Rain looked imminent, so at 2:00 we started heading back. By the time we got to the second footbridge, it was swinging wildly in the wind. A poor young woman was in tears as she crossed it. We stopped at the memorial for climbers who had died on Mt. Cook (Aoraki) and returned to the hut at around 3:30. We had a cup of tea and met a young couple who would be staying the night in the other bunkroom: Aton from California and Lauren from New York. They are both students in Wellington who were taking a trip around the South Island. We chatted with them and drove them into Cook Village. We stopped at the visitors' centre to buy some postcards and books. While there, Stan ran into Gabi, a Swiss woman who went on the West Coast trip with him a year and a half ago, What timing! We invited her to the hut for dinner, and she accepted. We picked up some Speight's and Bacardi (they do take-aways at the pub) and then drove up to the Tasman Glacier. There was a small but steep hike up to a gorgeous lookout point, and we caught sunset there. Mt. Cook was still somewhat obscured by the wild cloud formations, but in both directions the views were great in the orange light. We could hear the glacier calving. We saw Blue Lakes, which were actually green. We then hiked back down to the van. When we returned to he hut we found that a family (mom, dad, and two kids) had arrived. They weren't especially friendly, and when we went into our bunkroom we saw that they had taken the other bunks, and had piled some of their stuff on top of our own. We settled in, and soon afterwards Gabi arrived. The family was cooking their dinner in the kitchen, so we sat at the table and made our dessert: cheesecake. We couldn't use Stan's traditional cheesecake plate (the frisbee) because t had sustained a crack while being used as bellows for the hangi fire. When the family was done cooking, we headed to the kitchen and prepared chicken satay and rice. We had some drinks and a lot of laughs. Gabi was a lot of fun. We ate dinner (delicious and very spicy) and then showed Gabi some of our digital pictures. The family offered us some of the daughter's 12th birthday cake, and we offered them some cheesecake. They polished off the cheesecake and Stan wasn't even finished! Lauren and Aton returned from town and played NZ Monopoly. While we were saying goodbye to Gabi, the family went to bed without so much as saying goodnight. We didn't quite know what to do, as we had planned to get our stuff together before they turned in so that we wouldn't wake them in the morning. We decided it would be better to disturb them now than later, so we quietly grabbed our stuff and brought it into the lounge. Stan drove Gabi back to her hostel, and we started to get our stuff organized as best we could. We turned off the generator and went to bed. Stan bailed on us at the last minute and brought his mattress into the lounge to sleep there. We needn't have worried about disturbing the family. All night the little girl talked in her sleep, the dad had night terrors (made so much noise I thought he had fallen out of the top bunk at one point!), and the dad's watch beeped every half hour. Luckily I was so tired that I slept through most of it. Craig, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. He barely slept. |
 Wyn Irwin Hut and our van  View from Wyn Irwin Hut  Stan and Craig at Hooker Valley  Steph, Craig, Stan, and Gabi: Chicken satay at Wyn Irwin Hut 
|
|
 |
|
 |
