Hooker Valley Track- Aoraki/Mt Cook

Catch-up

After walking to Kea Point in the early morning I later walked the very popular Hooker Valley Track with David, up the Hooker Valley to the Hooker Glacier Lake where there are fabulous views of Mt Cook and the surrounding mountains.

The track starts near the White Horse Hill DOC Campground…

…and passes by the original site of the Hermitage Hotel where a plaque and information board mark the spot.

A little further on there are views back down the valley to the ‘new’ Hermitage Hotel.

We also pass Freda’s Rock where her now famous photo was taken; I try a similar pose. Freda du Faur was the first woman to climb Aoraki/Mt Cook, an amazing feat for 1910, and I’d say, especially so achieving it wearing that skirt! I saw a TV programme on Freda’s accomplishment awhile ago and I recall the researchers mentioning that she wasn’t given the acknowledgment she should have had at the time due to the fact that she was an un-married woman climbing with two male guides. It was even suggested that she might have been having a ménage à trois with them; after all they were sleeping in a tent on the mountain with no chaperones. Tut, tut!

As we start a gentle climb up the path, Mt Cook finally comes into view. This would have been my first sight up close had I not walked to Kea Point earlier in the day.

Our next stop is at the Alpine Memorial where there are far too many plaques remembering the people who have lost their lives on Mt Cook & the nearby mountains. Since these photos were taken, three more people have died in the area this summer.

The memorial overlooks Mt Cook village, the Hermitage and all the way down to Lake Pukaki on the horizon.

The Hooker Valley Track is 5kms long and is one of the most popular walks in the National Park. The track is well formed, rising and falling often as it crosses the ridges and humps of the old moraine walls. There are numerous steps to climb and three large swing-bridges to cross along the way.

While all the information says to allow 3 hours (return) to walk it, I would add an extra hour so you don’t have to rush and can stop and take in the fabulous scenery along the way. And even though it looks like it’s an easy walk, you do need to have sturdy footwear; not the jandals (flip-flops) I saw on the feet of a couple of people. I even saw a pair of high-heels on one woman. I bet she didn’t get far.  Also, take a snack or lunch and plenty of water; it’s hot work on a warm day. I gave some of my water to a couple of girls who had finished their one only small bottle well before they arrived at the end.

The Spaniard/Taramea were in full flower, their spikes stabbing at a few unwary people along the way.

Soon we have our first sight of the Mueller Glacier Lake below Mt Sefton. You’ll remember this is the lake I saw below the platform when I walked to Kea Point. Mueller Glacier is tucked around the corner to the left, as is Kea Point; behind and on top of the gravel moraine wall. The Hooker River flows out of the lake at the bottom right...

…where the first of the three swingbridges cross the river.

I bet you thought that was a fairly small river and swingbridge; the people, including David, give both of them some perspective here.

The river is a rough bubbling grey torrent as it flows beneath the bridge, some of those boulders are the size of small cars. Mt Sefton towers high above the lake behind.

It’s a great day for a walk. And there are plenty of people coming and going along the track. Many tourists are in the National Park just for the day and the pressure is on to complete all the short walks in the valley.

We approach the 2nd swingbridge, this bridge crosses the Hooker River just before it enters Mueller Lake…

The flow here is also a roaring torrent, both upstream…

…and towards it’s outlet into Mueller Lake. Once again it’s hard to get a sense of scale here, but across the lake on the lower plateau to the right, is the Kea Point lookout where I ended up this morning.

I took this photo from Kea Point earlier in the day- you can see the Hooker River outlet across the lake and in the background the swingbridge which I have only just spotted!

Once across the bridge, around a few corners and up and down a few rises, we finally have a clear view up the valley to Mt Cook.

And now I must apologise for the amount of photos I’ve included in this post……but you should have seen how many I started with!

The scenery in all directions is just jaw-droppingly spectacular; Mt Cook, the icing on the cake.

And of course a walk in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park wouldn’t be complete without seeing one of New Zealand’s most well known alpine plants, the Mt Cook lily itself, nicely placed for me to shoot with Mt Cook in the background.

The endemic Mt Cook Lily is not a lily at all, but a giant buttercup which can grow to over a metre tall with leaves the size of dinner plates. As we get closer to the head of the valley there are more and more flowering lily growing in amongst the alpine scrub.

Ahead of us the third swingbridge makes an appearance.

Mt Cook looms overhead as David strides it out.

There are many smaller streams entering the Hooker River from the surrounding mountains, one tumbles down a scree slide disappearing into the gravel midway down.

What a view! But DOC really should have thought about where they located the loos at Stocking Stream Day Shelter.

Now that’s a better shot.

A boardwalk crosses delicate alpine herb fields and tussock wetlands.

The third swingbridge crosses the Hooker River just below it’s outlet from the glacier lake…

…it is also a swift moving torrent of dirty grey water.

We’re getting close…

…one last haul up and over the top…

…and there’s the lake…and around the corner…

…there’s a whole heap of people! We’re definitely back in tourist country.

Selfies are being taken left, right & centre, some are sitting on the rocks lower down doing yoga or mediating, others just stand & take in the views. We feel a bit self-conscious when we take a space at the table and pull out our packed lunch & thermos while others are chewing on a muesli bar…or their nails. The beauty of towing our home behind us; we nearly always have a full pantry!

Across the lake we can see the dirty blue ice face of the Hooker Glacier.

Some have walked down to the lake edge for a paddle (brrr…..) and over to the river outlet at the far right. One of the guys brings back an ice block (berg) he’s rescued from the lake. We all have a hold and leave it in the middle of the table for fellow hikers to handle before it melts.

After an awesome hike to the lake in hot temperatures(for a mountain), the weather starts to close in and rain threatens, so we pack up and head back down the trail. I look back as the wind whips past us and rain and cloud overtake Mt Cook’s peak- known as the ‘cloud piercer’, I can see why.

We pass a steady stream of people still coming up the track and over the bridges- many with throw-away rain ponchos on, it’s a pity they weren’t just a few minutes earlier. While the walk is great I’m not so sure I’d be happy to find that the pièce de résistance, Mt Cook, wasn’t on view at the end. I guess most people have no choice; it is the luck of the draw.

And one last multi-photo frame with some of the native flowering plants I found along the way….well, almost all native. I have no idea how the blue ‘Granny’s Bonnet’ managed to find itself near the path on the side of a mountain.

Riding Shotgun

I couldn't help myself, I just had to post these photos. I have around 400 to scan and select my best but that'll take time so I've selected a quick few to make you smile.

We were due to head off out of range this morning but have delayed it 24hrs because my computer died on me again last night and as you know I'd be lost without my computer, even out of range (that's when I process photos and write catch-up blogs). David has worked his way through the known issues and talked to people in far away lands(call centre) and he's managed to nurse it back to a reasonable state of health but I'm not so sure it's going to last. At least I can still work on it...but perhaps not so intensely, fingers crossed until we get to a town a little bigger than Te Anau!

Anyway following on from my last post, here are some shots of the gorgeous grebe family a few days later- I was lucky enough to visit the nest just as the chicks were called onboard for the ride of their lives. The parent and chicks floated about a little way off from the nest, the adult constantly calling it's mate who was still sitting on the nest with 2 unhatched eggs.

About an hour later, the sitting grebe must have decided it was time to abandon the nest (this was 5 days after the two chicks hatched), she- I don't know, but I'm thinking it would have been the female who didn't want to leave- climbed off the nest, did one last swim and dive, bringing a big bit of weed back to the nest and pushing it onboard (that piece that is partly covering one egg). And then swam off to join her family.

She began feeding two or three feathers she'd scooped from the water to the chicks who greedily swallowed them. I have heard that this is a habit of the grebes, the feathers cushion and help with the passage of fish bones through the chick's digestive system. I've seen this happening on every visit to the grebe family.

Riding shotgun- this is how the chicks will travel much of the time for the next few weeks, on one or the other parent's back. The chicks are already proficient swimmers and divers but prefer, for now, to catch a ride. They'll use their parent's back to keep warm, to rest and to escape danger. 

Man overboard! If you insist on riding side-saddle while taking in the big wide world, it's not long before you fall off...

The chick struggles for the next 10 minutes trying to get back on...

I thought the parent would have some sort of rudder system (it's got big enough feet) to be able to brace itself in the water so the chick can climb back onboard. But no, the parent and the chick went around and around for ages, I even got the feeling the parent was doing it on purpose, making the chick swim for awhile.

Meanwhile, the other parent took the opportunity of doing some grooming while it waited for order to be restored. Finally the chick clambered up the 'ramp' at the back and disappeared below deck!

They're off again, heading for the big blue yonder, they won't return to the safety of the nest area again and must negotiate through and around many dangers over the next few weeks.

One day later I found them again, safely swimming and feeding a few kilometers away from the nest area.

With both chicks frequently hopping off and on, although still taking an age to get back onboard.

While I was watching the grebes, a NZ Scaup family swam past- Mum, Dad and 4 quite large ducklings, not that close but obviously close enough for all hell to break loose.  

Neither bird was giving an inch, both attacking each other. The scaup, it's the female, was sitting low in the water and launching herself at the grebe. The grebe was using it's sharp bill, stabbing and grabbing the duck. At one stage the grebe dived and and grabbed the scaup from underneath. All I could see was the scaup walking on water!

I don't think there was a winner in the end, just two very irate mamas but it was the scaup that swam off to rejoin her family who had carried on along the lake edge out of sight.

"Go Mum!!" - The grebes sat watching from the sidelines and the safety of Dad's back (I have no idea which parent was which, you can't tell the difference with grebes). 

Order is restored, wounds licked and the family move off.

I'm sure I'm going to find a lot more photos once I check the pile in more detail so don't be surprised to see another blog on the grebes in due course. What a privilege to not only find a nest but see newly hatched chicks being fed on the nest and then returning a few days later just in time to see them leave the nest, see the parent abandoned the remaining two eggs, and then find the family again a day later out in the big wide world.  I couldn't have planned it any better if I tried.