Mount Cook National Park

Mount Cook/Aoraki (the traditional Maori name) is New Zealands highest point at a height of 3754m (12,313ft). This is in spite of its summit being reduced by about 10m (33ft) during a landslide in 1991. In 1998 the New Zealand Government came to an agreement with the Maori leaders to return to using the traditional names for locations. This is the reason that many places we have visited look to be from a non-English speaking country. Aoraki is an example of this and now you will find all the road signs with this name on it and Mount Cook will be in italics underneath, probably only to stop the tourists getting confused.

Geologically NZ is a new and fractured land, relatively recently raised from beneath the sea. Most of the surface rock is less than 100m years old and the land is still being actively shaped. This is because the islands lie close to where 2 of the worlds tectonic plates come into contact. Just East of the North island the Pacific Plate colides with the Indo-Australia Plate as the latter is drawn under the Pacific Plate. The crust is heated then rises as magma in the Taupo Volcanic Zone in the central North island. This is a region of intense and dramaticaly active volcanism. In the South of New Zealand the collision of the 2 plates buckled the crust, thrusting it up to form the Southern Alps. An enormous faultline - the Alpine fault - extends diagonally for almost the entire length of the South island from Milford Sound to Cook Strait, creating a zone of instability where earthquakes are common.

The Southern Alps are New Zealands most spectacular landform with a range of snow covered peaks, glacier lakes and valleys, rivers and giant glaciers. Mount Cook is part of the Southern Alps and has several glaciers. The largest of these is the Tasman Glacier and at 28km (17 miles) it is New Zealands longest.

On our way to the park you couldn't help but see the huge mountain range appearing on the horizon and there were plenty of opportunities to stop and admire the huge mountain range that towered above the clouds with the snow and ice on its peaks.

















Upon getting to the park we were keen to go and see the glaciers so we headed for that area. The first walk we undertook was a walk near the glaciers to go and see some lakes that were called the Blue Lakes. Upon getting there we discovered that the lakes were infact green. Maybe that is why the fish we seen in it were dead!

















Tasman Glacier:

From here it was time to go and see the Glacier. As we said above, the Tasman Glacier is huge at 28km long and 3km wide, and is one of the largest in the world. At some points the ice is 2,000ft thick. When we got to the lookout point the scene was more like a quarry site than a huge ice formation. However the stones and rocks on the surface are only between 1 and 2 metres thick. Beneath this is up to 600m of ice in some parts. Like all glaciers, the Tasman is shrinking rapidly at a rate of around 0.5% per year which has created this huge terminal lake that you will see in our photos. Around 20 years ago this lake was nothing more than a few puddles and the glacier would have been higher than where we were standing, which illustrates just how much has melted in a short period of time. All of the huge lakes in this area were formed by melted glaciers. At its peak, the Tasman Glacier was 85km long and more than 700m above the lookout point we were standing at giving it a height of approximately 1,400m!

































Some of the best views of the scenery was as we were leaving the park. Whilst driving back from the glacier you are confronted by the awesome sight of Mount Cook.

















Picnic Near Mt Cook:

On the way back from the National Park we stopped off for a wee picnic at Lake Pukaki which was amazing. The water was so clear and the mountains reflected on the water to create amazing scenery. It was such a nice peaceful place to stop off and have lunch.