This past weekend I traveled to Mount Cook where I hiked the Hooker Valley Track and visited Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo. It was one of the best weekends of my life. I have never been so in love with New Zealand as I am now. When I woke up on Saturday, I woke up to a blue (like Rollins blue) fog coming down from the mountains and headed to the track. Hour by hour as I hiked the Hooker Valley track, the fog burned off as the sun came through the clouds and it gradually became warmer. Once I got to the end of the beautiful track I sat by a small body of water formed from run-off from the glaciers and caught my breath.
All of a sudden a woman who didn’t speak English began screaming out and pointing at the sky; I looked up and that’s when
I saw it. The fog has burned off just enough to let a peak of the snow-covered Mount Cook show through. I was in awe. Here I was admiring the lake and decent-sized mountains, w
hich I thought peaked just above the fog . . . little did I realize how massive these mountains were! I must have looked up at Mount Cook that day for hours, until I became too tired and had to hike back.
