Sunday, March 16, 2025

 Sunday, March 16, 2025

Good Morning Christchurch! We had breakfast in the hotel and then took off. We have a 4.5 hour ride to Mount Cook. We happened upon a make shift car show. Like in the US this group meets every 4th Sunday for breakfast. It was interesting to see American cars from the 50’s with right hand drive.



We see miles and miles of beautiful farmland with either sheep or cattle as the huge mountain ranges behind majestically overlook. 





We ventured into Lake Tekapo. This is where you see the iconic fields of lupine. Unfortunately they are long gone now.








The last of the lupines.

I read on instagram the best views of Lake Tekapo are at Astro Cafe on the top of Mount John. We found it.
It is also an observatory for NZ University. The views were breathtaking!




We continued down the road and came to Lake Pukaki. Here we had our first glimpse of Mount Cook. It sits majestically at the North end of Lake Pukaki.







As we got closer to Mount Cook, the views were even better!




We checked into our hotel The Hermitage. It is carved into the side of the mountain looking directly at Mount Cook. Here is the view from our room.

Tonight we are having dinner at The Alpine here at the Hermitage and then at 9:30PM we are going on a Big Sky Stargazing Adventure.

This is the afterglow of the sunset on Mount Cook.


Dinner was good, it was a buffet. They had quite a variety of sushi, lamb, pork, mussels…I think we’ll try someplace else tomorrow. 
After dinner we found out due to high winds, high cloud cover and just after a full moon, the stargazing was cancelled🥲…Mother Nature isn’t cooperating with us! 
We went out to watch the moon rise. It was beautiful as it popped up between the mountains. There was another couple out there taking pictures. We got to talking. They have taken trips in order to take pictures. Here is his website:
His pictures are amazing!




They are originally from NY and currently living in Ct. Believe it or not he went to Manhattan College and graduated in 1976. I went through my litany of do you know??? He knew no one. He said he was an engineer and didn’t get out much. He didn’t even know Dickie! He didn’t follow sports. Finally I said who was your roommate? He said Thom Kirwan…I said you must know MaryClare! The first thing he said was, “Did they get married?” Success!The connection was made!

Well off to bed. The forecast for tomorrow isn’t good.  We’re hoping the stargazing will work for us. We are also have a glacier lake excursion. 💤💤💤Good Night Mount Cook!











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