Tuesday Dec 6
Up and and at ‘em at 6:30am - time to pack up and leave to Mt Cook. We were on the road by 10am for the 1 hour drive to the Hermitage Hotel at Mr Cook. Fortunately we had called ahead to request an early check-in which we were able to obtain - so we were settled in by midday.
We went to the cafe / bar for some lunch but the pickings were totally un-appetising - pre-packed sandwiches etc, so we had a bag of chips and a drink. We went back to our room and finished off some bread, cheese and prosciutto.
After a bit of a rest we did a hike up to a scenic vantage point and visited the visitor center which has pictures and stories of the early adventurers who climbed Mt Cook before 1900. We tried to check out alternate cafes but this turned out to be futile.
Back at our hotel we had showers, happy hour then a buffet dinner - the dinner was fine - nice salads, cold seafood (if that’s what you like), various “hot dishes” which look very nice but were more luke warm, a so-so cheese selection and a pretty good selection of mini desserts - could get a bit boring after 4 nights.
Wednesday Dec 7
Up and off to bekkie after an in-room Nespresso - breakfast buffet was your typical 4-star affair with no ‘made to order” eggs - pastries were surprisingly good - fruit selection was minimal but at least the pineapple was excellent - again could get boring after 4 mornings.
The weather was cool (12C) and cloudy but not raining - we did a 1 hour walk to a scenic lookout - up about a million stairs - actually about 300-400.
We made our own lunch in our room using some bread snaffued from the breakfast buffet and the last of our prosciutto and cheese.
Later we took the glacier lake boat tour on Lake Tasman - the weather had cleared to a fine (still around mid-teens) and sunny day. The tour required a bus trip of 15 minutes, a walk of 25 minutes then a boat trip on the lake of 1 hour - back to the hotel the same way. The tour was excellent with close up views of the Tasman glacier face and a few icebergs floating in the lake - all for $165 pp - clearly a money spinner for the operators with up to 6 tours per day with 35+ on each tour.
Back at the hotel it was a rinse and repeat - showers, happy hour, buffet dinner, off to bed.
Thursday Dec 8
Up a bit late at 7:30am for pre-breakfast Nespresso's - a must have considering the poor coffee on the breakfast buffet. The fine weather had turned cloudy (like the start of Wednesday) but with drizzle.
We still did the happy valley walk in the afternoon - billed as the most popular walk in NZ. The weather ranged from driving drizzle to almost sunny and warm - we only did about 80% of the walk in 2+ hours.
Same old / same old for dinner.
Friday Dec 9
Up to a rainy day so we lazed about in the morning then spent the afternoon in the Sir Edmund Hillary center where there is an interesting museum about Sir Ed and other famous NZ alpinists and of course the history of Mt Cook and the Heritage Hotel which was quite the glamorous place in it’s hey day (1930’s).
We watched several movies in the afternoon the most interesting of which was the story of Hillary’s historic first ascent of Mt Everest.
Saturday Dec 10
Time to pack up and head to Queenstown.
