Part One: Rugby Lows and Mountain Highs

Hi All,

We have had such an eventful week that we have split the blog update into two.

We left Kaikoura for Christchurch. We were pleasently surprised by the city - deciding it was our favourite so far although the British influence is incredibly strong! We had a pleasant meander around the Art Gallery, Art Centre, Canterbury Museum and Botanical Gardens - how cultured we are!

On Saturday evening we were off to the AMI stadium to see England take on the All Blacks. We knew a win was unlikely but were unprepared for quite how dismal England were. The whole experience was, however, a delight. The atmosphere in the stadium was superb and the match was even preceded by a re-enactment of the Battle of Britain - and of course the Haka!

Once again we had excellent hosts, staying with the Cooke family in the country on the outskirts of the city. They fed us, watered us and kicked their son Jason out of his room so that we could kip in it! Marvellous.

From there we made our way to Mount Cook village. With snow forecast we were slightly anxious but we arrived to decent weather and immediately undertook a walk to the Tasman Glacier Lake where we were rewarded with views of an iceberg strewn lake in front of the glacier - we were a little surprised by how dirty the ice was though. The forecast snow fell overnight and we awoke to picture perfect views. Eager not to miss the clear skies we set of at 8am for our first walk to Kea Point where we saw an almost cloudless Mount Cook before heading back to the hostel in heavy snow and fog for breakfast. Later we walked to Hooker Valley. A marvellously picturesque walk where we again experienced both clear skies and snow (changeable mountain weather was in evidence). The snow was only about two inches deep so didn't cause us the kind of problems experienced in Tongariro! We finished off the day with a steep 400m climb up to Red Tarns. As we reached the viewing point the clouds parted and we saw Mount Cook in all its glory as the sun began to set. The perfect end to the day.